Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral
The Mersey Funnel
I have long wanted to visit the Grade II* Listed Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral and it didn’t disappoint. Approaching it for the first time, from the appropriately named Hope Street, caused my eyes to light up.
The buttresses, which splay out from the drum of the building, reminded me of visiting the magnificent Jantar Mantar in Jaipur.
It was built between 1962 and 1967. Frederick Gibberd & Partners beat 269 other entrants to design the cathedral. It was a tough brief. Build a new cathedral for £1m within five years, and build it on the crypt begun by Edwin Lutyens in the 1930s which was to form the base of the largest Roman Catholic cathedral outside Rome before war and lack of money intervened. The crypt can still be visited and helps visualise the sheer scale of what might have been.
It is less stark than Clifton Cathedral, but is also designed in response to the Vatican II reforms (which aimed to bring the clergy and the congregation closer together). When you first enter, you are met with a vast space bathed in blue and red light from the central lantern. The glazed apex is symbolic of Christ's crown of thorns. The lantern was designed by John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens and shifts in character as the sun moves round throughout the day. They had previously worked wonders at Coventry Cathedral.
