Westminster Cathedral in London is the mother church of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.
The site on which the cathedral stands in the City of Westminster was purchased by the Archdiocese of Westminster in 1885. Westminster Cathedral is the largest Catholic church in England and Wales and the seat of the Archbishop of Westminster.
John Betjeman called it "a masterpiece in striped brick and stone in an intricate pattern of bonding, the domes being all-brick in order to prove that the good craftsman has no need of steel or concrete."
In the late 19th century, the Catholic Church's hierarchy had only recently been restored in England and Wales, and it was in memory of Cardinal Wiseman (who died in 1865, and was the first Archbishop of Westminster from 1850) that the first substantial sum of money was raised for the new cathedral. The land was acquired in 1884 by Wiseman's successor, Cardinal Manning, having previously been occupied by the second Tothill Fields Bridewell prison.
After two false starts in 1867 (under architect Henry Clutton) and 1892 (architect Baron von Herstel), construction started in 1895 under Manning's successor, the third archbishop Cardinal Vaughan with John Francis Bentley as architect, and built in a style heavily influenced by Byzantine architecture.
The cathedral opened in 1903, a year after Bentley's death. One of the first public services in the cathedral was Cardinal Vaughan's requiem; the Cardinal died on 19 June 1903. For reasons of economy, the decoration of the interior had hardly been started and still much remained to be completed. Under the laws of the Catholic Church at the time, no place of worship could be consecrated unless free from debt and having its fabric completed, so the consecration ceremony did not take place until 28 June 1910.
In 1977, as part of her Silver Jubilee Celebrations, Queen Elizabeth II visited the cathedral. Although there was no religious service (the visit was to a flower show) it was highly symbolic as the first visit of a reigning monarch of the United Kingdom to a Catholic church in the nation since the Reformation.
On 28 May 1982, the first day of his six-day pastoral visit to the United Kingdom, Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass in the cathedral.
In 1995, at the invitation of Cardinal Basil Hume, Queen Elizabeth again visited the cathedral but this time for a liturgy, the first participation of a reigning monarch of the United Kingdom in a Catholic church liturgy for several years.
On Saturday 18 September 2010, on the third day of his four-day state visit to the United Kingdom, Pope Benedict XVI also celebrated Mass in the cathedral.
In January 2011 the cathedral was the venue for the reception and ordination of three former Anglican bishops into the newly formed Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.
The whole building, in the neo-Byzantine style, covers a floor area of about 5,017 square metres (54,000 sq ft); the dominating factor of the scheme, apart from the campanile, being a spacious and uninterrupted nave, 18 metres (59 ft), covered with domical vaulting.
In planning the nave, a system of supports was adopted not unlike that to be seen in most Gothic cathedrals, where huge, yet narrow, buttresses are projected at intervals, and stiffened by transverse walls, arcading and vaulting. Unlike in a Gothic cathedral, at Westminster they are limited to the interior. The main piers and transverse arches that support the domes divide the nave into three compartments, each 5.56 square metres (59.8 sq ft). The domes rest on the arches at a height of 27 metres (89 ft) from the floor, the total internal height being 34 metres (112 ft).
In selecting the pendentive type of dome, of shallow concavity, for the main roofing, weight and pressure have been reduced to a minimum. The domes and pendentures are formed of concrete, and as extraneous roofs of timber were dispensed with, it was necessary to provide a thin independent outer shell of impervious stone. The concrete flat roofing around the domes is covered with asphalt. The sanctuary is essentially Byzantine in its system of construction. The extensions that open out on all sides make the corona of the dome seem independent of support.
The eastern termination of the cathedral suggests the Romanesque, or Lombardic style of Northern Italy. The crypt with openings into the sanctuary, thus closely following the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio, Milan, the open colonnade under the eaves, the timber roof following the curve of the apex, are all familiar features. The huge buttresses resist the pressure of a vault 14.5-metre (48 ft) in span. Although the cruciform plan is hardly noticeable inside the building, it is emphasised outside by the boldly projecting transepts. These with their twin gables, slated roofs, and square turrets with pyramidal stone cappings suggest a Norman prototype in striking contrast to the rest of the design.
The main structural parts of the building are of brick and concrete, the latter material being used for the vaulting and domes of graduated thickness and complicated curve. Following Byzantine tradition, the interior was designed with a view to the application of marble and mosaic. Throughout the exterior, the lavish introduction of white stone bands in connection with the red brickwork (itself quite common in the immediate area) produces an impression quite foreign to the British eye. The main entrance façade owes its composition, in a measure, to accident rather than design. The most prominent feature of the façade is the deeply recessed arch over the central entrance, flanked by tribunes, and stairway turrets. The elevation on the north, with a length of nearly 91.5 metres (300 ft) contrasted with the vertical lines of the campanile and the transepts, is most impressive. It rests on a continuous and plain basement of granite, and only above the flat roofing of the chapels does the structure assume a varied outline.
On entering the cathedral the visitor who knows Saint Mark’s in Venice, or the churches of Constantinople, will note the absence of a spacious and well lighted outer narthex, comprising all the main entrances; but this is soon forgotten in view of the fine proportions of the nave, and the marble columns, with capitals of Byzantine type, that support the galleries and other subsidiary parts of the building. The marbles selected for the columns were, in some instances, obtained from formations quarried by the ancient Romans, chiefly in Greece.