Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral stands in the city centre, its circular concrete form topped by a lantern tower and clad in Portland stone. Locals call it ‘Paddy’s Wigwam’ or ‘The Mersey Funnel’ because of its tent-like silhouette. The architect Frederick Gibberd won an international competition and built it between 1962 and 1967. Earlier plans by Edward Welby Pugin and Sir Edwin Lutyens were never finished, leaving only fragments like the Lutyens crypt now on display. The cathedral replaced a smaller chapel that had served the growing Catholic population after the Great Irish Famine. About half a million Irish migrants arrived in Liverpool during the famine, many staying to swell the congregation. The building’s circular design lets every seat face the altar directly, seating up to two thousand worshippers. Gibberd used sixteen boomerang-shaped concrete trusses and two ring beams to create the roof, with flying buttresses giving the exterior its distinctive tent shape. William Mitchell carved the geometric relief above the entrance, showing three crosses, while fibreglass panels beside the doors depict the symbols of the Evangelists. The main altar is made from white marble from Skopje and measures ten feet long. David Atkins designed the grey and white marble floor, and Frank Knight arranged the concentric seating. Inside, the focus is the marble altar with the Crown of Glass rising above it. This sixteen-sided lantern is twenty-two and a half metres high and twenty-one metres wide at its base, tapering slightly as it climbs. John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens created the stained-glass panels for each of the sixteen bays, filling the interior with coloured light. Around the walls are chapels including the Blessed Sacrament Chapel, the Lady Chapel and the Chapel of Saint Joseph, some open, some walled off, others tucked beneath balconies. The Baptistry sits to the right of the entrance, and above the Blessed Sacrament Chapel is the organ. Steps from Hope Street lead up to the entrance, completed only in 2003 after an obstruction was removed.