Architecture: A Masterpiece for Merseyside

After 74 years of building, Liverpool has its cathedral

Master Stone Carver Tom Murphy was born in 1904, the year King Edward VII visited the booming port city of Liverpool to lay the foundation stone of a great new Anglican cathedral. As Murphy grew up, so did the cathedral, with stone upon hand-dressed stone rising on a rocky eminence overlooking the Mersey River. Then, 44 years ago, Murphy himself joined the work force on the vast new church. In the decades since, with hammer, chisel and mallet, he has carved more than 100 heraldic shields, ornaments, pinnacles and corbels to decorate the cathedral inside and out; his last accomplishment is the royal coat of arms, 5 ft. by 5 ft., over the west doorway—a task that took him nine months. He also enjoyed a privilege few craftsmen have experienced since the Middle Ages. He was present to see his monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, preside over the dedication of Liverpool's Cathedral Church of Christ, 74 years after it was begun.

Conceived in the Edwardian era of optimism, the cathedral is nothing if not ambitious. It was the first built in England's northern provinces since the Reformation, and may well be the last one in the majestic Gothic style to be erected anywhere. It is is the largest church in a country already rich in religious edifices, and the fifth largest in the world.* Its vaulting (175 ft. high under the tower) is higher than any other, its length (619 ft.) second only to St. Peter's in Rome. Work on the cathedral continued through two world wars and a depression. During the blitz of 1940, King George VI came to Liverpool and told church officials: "Keep on with the work, if only in a small way. Refuse to be beaten." Work continued even after bombs damaged the walls and blew out several windows of the completed Lady Chapel. The pounds of merchant benefactors and the pence of a devoted public paid the bills: over the years the cathedral has cost more than $11 million and only $100,000 more remains to be raised for final expenses, although maintenance costs will remain high. At that the cathedral is a bargain: at today's prices, it would probably cost ten times as much to build.

What Liverpudlians got for their generosity is no mere ostentatious pile of stone. The cathedral's clean, neo-Gothic lines and interior have already been widely praised; Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman, a connoisseur of architecture, pronounced it "one of great buildings of the world." Yet its architect, a Roman Catholic named Giles Scott, was a 22-year-old unknown when he chosen from among 102 competitors in 1903. Later Scott go on to design London's Waterloo Bridge and the massive Battersea power station, and to rebuild the bomb-gutted House of Commons after World War II. But the cathedral remained his masterpiece, a modern vision of Gothic that is uncluttered and open. "Don't let your eyes dwell on the soaring arches or tracery of windows," he told visitors. "Look at my spaces." Scott, later knighted by King George V, supervised construction for more than half a century. He personally set the last stone on the highest tower pinnacle during World War II. He died in 1960 at 79 and is buried just outside the cathedral's imposing west front.