ARCHITECTURE
The Cathedral Church of Our Lady Help of Christians and St Peter of Alacantara Paul Waddington looks at the history of Shrewsbury’s cathedral, and explains how such a small building became a cathedral
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hrewsbury got its first postReformation Catholic chapel in 1776. Situated in the street known as Town Walls, it was originally a simple building in the style that we now associate with Nonconformist chapels. Extensions of 1826 and 1840 gave it a classical facade, and increased the seating capacity to 300. But by the late 1840s, the Catholic population of Shrewsbury had grown to the extent that a larger building was required. With this in mind land was purchased further along Town Walls, which eventually became the site of Shrewsbury Cathedral, but not before several changes of plan. When the Catholic Hierarchy of England and Wales was re-established in 1850, it was decided that the counties of Shropshire and Cheshire should form a diocese to be named Shrewsbury, largely in deference to John Talbot, the 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, who had funded the building of several churches, especially around his estate of Alton Towers in Staffordshire. A new cathedral was necessary as there was no existing church in the two counties of sufficient
The interior has much to admire Birkenhead, Chester or Shrewsbury? size or dignity to fill the role. The siting of the new building became the subject of much debate. As a temporary measure, A.W.N. Pugin’s newly completed Church of St Alban in Macclesfield was selected to serve as a pro-cathedral.
The exterior: the cathedral is constructed of sandstone, and has a five-bay nave with side aisles
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Because of the concentration of Catholics in the Wirral, Birkenhead was initially the favoured location; but, the Earl’s offer to pay for a cathedral if it were built in Shrewsbury swayed opinion in favour of that town. A.W.N. Pugin would naturally be the architect. However, in 1851, Bishop Brown surprised everybody by purchasing a Georgian house in Chester with adjacent land, with the intention of building the cathedral there. Objections to this proposal, particularly from the Earl and his architect friend were sufficiently strong for the bishop to back down. At this point fate intervened, because both the Earl and A.W.N. Pugin died before work could be started. Bertram Talbot, the nineteen-year-old nephew of John, became 17th Earl of Shrewsbury, and despite his young age, renewed the family commitment to fund the Shrewsbury project. It fell to Edward Welby Pugin, also aged nineteen, the eldest son of A.W.N. Pugin, to draw up plans for a cathedral to be built on the site purchased
SUMMER 2019
