Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral
Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral known as the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, is the seat of the Archbishop of Liverpool and the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Liverpool in Liverpool, England. The Grade II* Metropolitan Cathedral is one of Liverpool's many listed buildings. To distinguish it from the Anglican Liverpool Cathedral, locals call it the "Catholic Cathedral"; the cathedral's architect, Frederick Gibberd, was the winner of a worldwide design competition. Construction began in 1962 and was completed in 1967. Earlier designs for a cathedral were proposed in 1933 and 1953. During the Great Irish Famine the Catholic population of Liverpool increased dramatically. About half a million Irish, who were predominantly Catholic, fled to England to escape the famine; because of the increase in the Catholic population, the co-adjutor Bishop of Liverpool, Alexander Goss, saw the need for a cathedral. The location he chose was the grounds of St. Edward's College on Everton.
In 1853 Goss bishop, awarded the commission for the building of the new cathedral to Edward Welby Pugin. By 1856 the Lady chapel of the new cathedral had been completed. Due to financial resources being diverted to the education of Catholic children, work on the building ceased at this point and the Lady chapel – now named Our Lady Immaculate – served as parish church to the local Catholic population until its demolition in the 1980s. Following the purchase of the 9-acre former Brownlow Hill workhouse site in 1930, Sir Edwin Lutyens was commissioned to provide a design which would be an appropriate response to the Giles Gilbert Scott-designed Neo-gothic Anglican cathedral being built further along Hope Street. Lutyens' design was intended to create a massive structure that would have become the second-largest church in the world, it would have had the world's largest dome, with a diameter of 168 feet compared to the 137.7 feet diameter on St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. Building work based on Lutyens' design began on Whit Monday, 5 June 1933, being paid for by the contributions of working class Catholics of the burgeoning industrial port.
In 1941, the restrictions of World War II wartime and a rising cost from £3 million to £27 million, forced construction to stop. In 1956, work recommenced on the crypt, finished in 1958. Thereafter, Lutyens' design for the Cathedral was considered too costly and was abandoned with only the crypt complete; the restored architectural model of the Lutyens cathedral is on display at the Museum of Liverpool. After the ambitious design by Lutyens fell through, Adrian Gilbert Scott, brother of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, was commissioned in 1953 to work on a smaller cathedral design with a £4 million budget, he proposed a scaled-down version of Lutyens' building. Scott's plans were criticised and the building did not go ahead; the present Cathedral was designed by Sir Frederick Gibberd. Construction began in October 1962 and less than five years on the Feast of Pentecost 14 May 1967, the completed cathedral was consecrated. Soon after its opening, it began to exhibit architectural flaws; this led the cathedral authorities to sue Frederick Gibberd for £1.3 million on five counts, the two most serious being leaks in the aluminium roof and defects in the mosaic tiles, which had begun to come away from the concrete ribs.
The design has been described by Stephen Bayley as "a thin and brittle take on an Oscar Niemeyer original in Brasilia," though Pevsner notes that the resemblance is only superficial. The competition to design the Cathedral was held in 1959; the requirement was first, for a congregation of 3,000 to be able to see the altar, in order that they could be more involved in the celebration of the Mass, second, for the Lutyens crypt to be incorporated in the structure. Gibberd achieved these requirements by designing a circular building with the altar at its centre, by transforming the roof of the crypt into an elevated platform, with the cathedral standing at one end; the construction contract was let to Taylor Woodrow. The Cathedral is built in concrete with a Portland stone cladding and an aluminium covering to the roof, its plan is circular, with 13 chapels around its perimeter. The shape of the Cathedral is conical, it is surmounted by a tower in the shape of a truncated cone; the building is supported by 16 boomerang-shaped concrete trusses which are held together by two ring beams, one at the bends of the trusses and the other at their tops.
Flying buttresses are attached to the trusses. Rising from the upper ring beam is a lantern tower, containing windows of stained glass, at its peak is a crown of pinnacles; the entrance is at the top of a wide flight of steps leading up from Hope Street. Above the entrance is a large wedge-shaped structure; this acts as a bell tower, the four bells being mounted in rectangular orifices towards the top of the tower. Below these is a geometric relief sculpture, designed by William Mitchell, which includes three crosses. To the sides of the entrance doors are more reliefs in fibreglass by Mitchell, which represent the symbols of the Evangelists; the steps which lead up to the cathedral were only completed in 2003, when a building which obstructed the stairway path was acquired and demolished by developers. A much smaller version of the Cathedral designed by Sir Frederick Gibberd, was constructed i
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city in North West England, with an estimated population of 491,500 within the Liverpool City Council local authority in 2017. Its metropolitan area is the fifth-largest in the UK, with a population of 2.24 million in 2011. The local authority is Liverpool City Council, the most populous local government district in the metropolitan county of Merseyside and the largest in the Liverpool City Region. Liverpool is on the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary, lay within the ancient hundred of West Derby in the south west of the county of Lancashire, it became a borough in 1207 and a city in 1880. In 1889, it became a county borough independent of Lancashire, its growth as a major port was paralleled by the expansion of the city throughout the Industrial Revolution. Along with handling general cargo, raw materials such as coal and cotton, the city merchants were involved in the Atlantic slave trade. In the 19th century, it was a major port of departure for Irish and English emigrants to North America.
Liverpool was home to both the Cunard and White Star Line, was the port of registry of the ocean liner RMS Titanic, the RMS Lusitania, RMS Queen Mary and RMS Olympic. The popularity of the Beatles and other music groups from the Merseybeat era contributes to Liverpool's status as a tourist destination. Liverpool is the home of two Premier League football clubs and Everton, matches between the two being known as the Merseyside derby; the Grand National horse race takes place annually at Aintree Racecourse on the outskirts of the city. The city celebrated its 800th anniversary in 2007. In 2008, it was nominated as the annual European Capital of Culture together with Norway. Several areas of the city centre were granted World Heritage Site status by UNESCO in 2004; the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City includes the Pier Head, Albert Dock, William Brown Street. Liverpool's status as a port city has attracted a diverse population, drawn from a wide range of peoples and religions from Ireland and Wales.
The city is home to the oldest Black African community in the country and the oldest Chinese community in Europe. Natives and residents of the city of Liverpool are referred to as Liverpudlians, colloquially as "Scousers", a reference to "scouse", a form of stew; the word "Scouse" has become synonymous with the Liverpool accent and dialect. The name comes from the Old English lifer, meaning thick or muddy water, pōl, meaning a pool or creek, is first recorded around 1190 as Liuerpul. According to the Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, "The original reference was to a pool or tidal creek now filled up into which two streams drained"; the adjective Liverpudlian is first recorded in 1833. Other origins of the name have been suggested, including "elverpool", a reference to the large number of eels in the Mersey; the name appeared in 1190 as "Liuerpul", the place appearing as Leyrpole, in a legal record of 1418, may refer to Liverpool. Another such suggestion is derivation from Welsh llyvr pwl meaning "expanse or confluence at the pool".
King John's letters patent of 1207 announced the foundation of the borough of Liverpool. By the middle of the 16th century, the population was still around 500; the original street plan of Liverpool is said to have been designed by King John near the same time it was granted a royal charter, making it a borough. The original seven streets were laid out in an H shape: Bank Street, Castle Street, Chapel Street, Dale Street, Juggler Street, Moor Street and Whiteacre Street. In the 17th century there was slow progress in population growth. Battles for control of the town were waged during the English Civil War, including an eighteen-day siege in 1644. In 1699 Liverpool was made a parish by Act of Parliament, that same year its first slave ship, Liverpool Merchant, set sail for Africa. Since Roman times, the nearby city of Chester on the River Dee had been the region's principal port on the Irish Sea. However, as the Dee began to silt up, maritime trade from Chester became difficult and shifted towards Liverpool on the neighbouring River Mersey.
As trade from the West Indies, including sugar, surpassed that of Ireland and Europe, as the River Dee continued to silt up, Liverpool began to grow with increasing rapidity. The first commercial wet dock was built in Liverpool in 1715. Substantial profits from the slave trade and tobacco helped the town to prosper and grow, although several prominent local men, including William Rathbone, William Roscoe and Edward Rushton, were at the forefront of the abolitionist movement. By the start of the 19th century, a large volume of trade was passing through Liverpool, the construction of major buildings reflected this wealth. In 1830, Liverpool and Manchester became the first cities to have an intercity rail link, through the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; the population continued to rise especially during the 1840s when Irish migrants began arriving by the hundreds of thousands as a result of the Great Famine. In her poem "Liverpool", which celebrates the city's worldwide commerce, Letitia Elizabeth Landon refers to the Macgregor Laird expedition to the Niger River, at that time in progress.
Great Britain was a major market for cotton imported from the Deep South of the United States, which fed the textile industry in the country. Given the crucial place of both cotton and slavery in the city's economy, during the American Civil War Liverpool was, in the words of historian Sven Beckert, "the most pro-Confederate place in the world outside the Confederacy itself." For periods during the 19th century, the wealth of Liverpool
Historic England
Historic England is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture and Sport. It is tasked with protecting the historical environment of England by preserving and listing historic buildings, ancient monuments and advising central and local government; the body was created by the National Heritage Act 1983, operated from April 1984 to April 2015 under the name of English Heritage. In 2015, following the changes to English Heritage's structure that moved the protection of the National Heritage Collection into the voluntary sector in the English Heritage Trust, the body that remained was rebranded as Historic England. Historic England has a similar remit to and complements the work of Natural England which aims to protect the natural environment; the body inherited the Historic England Archive from the old English Heritage, projects linked to the archive such as Britain from Above, which saw the archive work with the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland to digitise and put online 96,000 of the oldest Aerofilms images.
The archive holds various nationally important collections and the results of older projects such as the work of the National Buildings Record absorbed by the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England and the Images of England project which set out to create a accessible online database of the 370,000 listed properties in England at a snapshot in time at the turn of the millennium. Historic England inherits English Heritage's position as the UK government's statutory adviser and a statutory consultee on all aspects of the historic environment and its heritage assets; this includes archaeology on land and under water, historic buildings sites and areas, designated landscapes and the historic elements of the wider landscape. It monitors and reports on the state of England's heritage and publishes the annual Heritage at Risk survey, one of the UK Government's Official statistics, it is tasked to secure the preservation and enhancement of the man-made heritage of England for the benefit of future generations.
Its remit involves: Caring for nationally important archive collections of photographs and other records which document the historic environment of England and date from the eighteenth century onwards. Giving grants national and local organisations for the conservation of historic buildings and landscapes. In 2013/14 over £13 million worth of grants were made to support heritage buildings. Advising central UK government on which English heritage assets are nationally important and should be protected by designation. Administering and maintaining the register of England's listed buildings, scheduled monuments, registered battlefields, World Heritage Sites and protected parks and gardens; this is published as an online resource as'The National Heritage List for England'. Advising local authorities on managing changes to the most important parts of heritage. Providing expertise through advice and guidance to improve the standards and skills of people working in heritage, practical conservation and access to resources.
In 2009–2010 it trained around 200 professionals working in local authorities and the wider sector. Consulting and collaborating with other heritage bodies and national planning organisations e.g. the preparation of Planning Policy statement for the Historic Environment Commissioning and conducting archaeological research, including the publication of'Heritage Counts' and ‘Heritage at Risk’ on behalf of the heritage sector which are the annual research surveys into the state of England's heritage. It is not responsible for approving alterations to listed buildings; the management of listed buildings is the responsibility of local planning authorities and the Department for Communities and Local Government. It owns the National Heritage Collection of nationally important historic sites in public care; however they do not run these sites as this function is instead carried out by the English Heritage Trust under licence until 2023. English Heritage Historic England Archive Cadw Historic Scotland Northern Ireland Environment Agency Manx National Heritage Department for Culture and Sport Conservation in the United Kingdom Heritage at Risk Historic houses in England National Trust Properties in England Heritage Open Days List of Conservation topics List of heritage registers List of museums in England Heritage film Official website The Historic England Archive: Search over 1 million catalogue entries describing photographs and drawings of England's buildings and historic sites, held in the Historic England Archive.
Britain from Above: presents the unique Aerofilms collection of aerial photographs from 1919-1953. Images of England website Heritage Explorer: Education site for teachers Department for Culture Media and Sport
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century. In its purest form, it is a style principally derived from the architecture of classical antiquity, the Vitruvian principles, the work of the Italian architect Andrea Palladio. In form, neoclassical architecture emphasizes the wall rather than chiaroscuro and maintains separate identities to each of its parts; the style is manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, in its architectural formulae as an outgrowth of some classicising features of the Late Baroque architectural tradition. Neoclassical architecture is still designed today, but may be labelled New Classical Architecture for contemporary buildings. In Central and Eastern Europe, the style is referred to as Classicism, while the newer revival styles of the 19th century until today are called neoclassical. Intellectually, neoclassicism was symptomatic of a desire to return to the perceived "purity" of the arts of Rome, to the more vague perception of Ancient Greek arts and, to a lesser extent, 16th-century Renaissance Classicism, a source for academic Late Baroque architecture.
Many early 19th-century neoclassical architects were influenced by the drawings and projects of Étienne-Louis Boullée and Claude Nicolas Ledoux. The many graphite drawings of Boullée and his students depict spare geometrical architecture that emulates the eternality of the universe. There are Edmund Burke's conception of the sublime. Ledoux addressed the concept of architectural character, maintaining that a building should communicate its function to the viewer: taken such ideas give rise to "architecture parlante". A return to more classical architectural forms as a reaction to the Rococo style can be detected in some European architecture of the earlier 18th century, most vividly represented in the Palladian architecture of Georgian Britain and Ireland; the baroque style had never been to the English taste. Four influential books were published in the first quarter of the 18th century which highlighted the simplicity and purity of classical architecture: Vitruvius Britannicus, Palladio's Four Books of Architecture, De Re Aedificatoria and The Designs of Inigo Jones... with Some Additional Designs.
The most popular was the four-volume Vitruvius Britannicus by Colen Campbell. The book contained architectural prints of famous British buildings, inspired by the great architects from Vitruvius to Palladio. At first the book featured the work of Inigo Jones, but the tomes contained drawings and plans by Campbell and other 18th-century architects. Palladian architecture became well established in 18th-century Britain. At the forefront of the new school of design was the aristocratic "architect earl", Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington; this House was a reinterpretation of Palladio's Villa Capra, but purified of 16th century elements and ornament. This severe lack of ornamentation was to be a feature of the Palladianism. In 1734 William Kent and Lord Burlington designed one of England's finest examples of Palladian architecture with Holkham Hall in Norfolk; the main block of this house followed Palladio's dictates quite but Palladio's low detached, wings of farm buildings were elevated in significance.
This classicising vein was detectable, to a lesser degree, in the Late Baroque architecture in Paris, such as in Perrault's east range of the Louvre. This shift was visible in Rome at the redesigned façade for S. Giovanni in Laterano. By the mid 18th century, the movement broadened to incorporate a greater range of Classical influences, including those from Ancient Greece. An early centre of neoclassicism was Italy Naples, where by the 1730s, court architects such as Luigi Vanvitelli and Ferdinando Fuga were recovering classical and Mannierist forms in their Baroque architecture. Following their lead, Giovanni Antonio Medrano began to build the first neoclassical structures in Italy in the 1730s. In the same period, Alessandro Pompei introduced neoclassicism to the Venetian Republic, building one of the first lapidariums in Europe in Verona, in the Doric style. During the same period, neoclassical elements were introduced to Tuscany by architect Jean Nicolas Jadot de Ville-Issey, the court architect of Francis Stephen of Lorraine.
On Jadot's lead, an original neoclassical style was developed by Gaspare Paoletti, transforming Florence into the most important centre of neoclassicism in the peninsula. In the second half of the century, Neoclassicism flourished in Turin and Trieste. In the latter two cities, just as in Tuscany, the sober neoclassical style was linked to the reformism of the ruling Habsburg enlightened monarchs; the Rococo style remained much popular in Italy until the Napoleonic regimes, which brought a new archaeological classicism, embraced as a political statement by young, urban Italians with republican leanings. The shift to neoclassical architecture is conventionally dated to the 1750s, it first gained influence in France. In France, the movement was propelled by a generation of French art students trained in Rome, was influenced by the writings of
Architecture of Liverpool
The architecture of Liverpool is rooted in the city's development into a major port of the British Empire. It encompasses a variety of architectural styles of the past 300 years, while next to nothing remains of its medieval structures which would have dated back as far as the 13th century. Erected 1716-18, Bluecoat Chambers is supposed to be the oldest surviving building in central Liverpool. There are over 85 Grade II * listed, it has been described by English Heritage as England's finest Victorian city. However, due to neglect, some of Liverpool's finest listed buildings are on English Heritage's Heritage at Risk register. In accordance with Liverpool's role as a trading port, many of its best buildings were erected as headquarters for shipping firms and insurance companies; the wealth thus generated led to the construction of grand civic buildings, designed to allow the local administrators to "run the city with pride". The historical significance and value of Liverpool's architecture and port layout was recognised when, in 2004, UNESCO declared large parts of the city a World Heritage Site.
Known as the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City, the nomination papers stress the city's role in the development of international trade and docking technology, summed up in this way under Selection Criterion iv: "Liverpool is an outstanding example of a world mercantile port city, which represents the early development of global trading and cultural connections throughout the British Empire." Liverpool's origins date back as far as the 11th century, although today nothing remains of the city's medieval architecture. The earliest building of note within Liverpool would have been Liverpool Castle, constructed between 1232 and 1235 by William de Ferrers; the oldest surviving building within the city is to be Stanlawe Grange in Aigburth, a Monastic grange dating from the 13th century. Frequent modifications throughout its history mean that little of the original building remains, although sections of it are believed to date from 1291. Despite the lack of many physical remnants of this period, the city's medieval history is still evident in the street patterns around Liverpool Town Hall, with all seven of the city's original streets remaining in the same position today.
Like medieval architecture before it, little remains of Tudor and Elizabethan architecture in Liverpool today. Speke Hall, located in the south of the city, is a Tudor manor house that dates from the 16th century, it was completed in 1598. It is one of the few remaining timber framed Tudor houses in the North of England and it is noted for its Victorian interior. Another large manor house that dates from this period is Croxteth Hall, the ancestral home of the Molyneux family. Started in 1575, only one wing of the building dates from this period, with the majority of the house completed during the 18th and 19th centuries; as such the building mixes a variety of different architectural styles including Elizabethan, Queen Anne Style and Georgian. Several buildings from the Stuart era remain in Liverpool today, with the oldest of them, Tuebrook House, dating from 1615; the Ancient Chapel of Toxteth dates from this period and was started around 1618. The building is today grade I still serves its original purpose as a Unitarian Chapel.
One of the period's most notable remaining buildings is Woolton Hall, a grade I listed manor house located in the south of the city. Built for the Molyneux family, the hall is conceived as a Palladian villa and constructed from red sandstone from the local quarry in Woolton. Built in 1716–17, but with additions nearly necessary, Bluecoat Chambers is the oldest surviving building in Liverpool city centre. Designed in the Queen Anne style, following in the tradition of Christopher Wren, it housed the Liverpool Blue Coat School. After the school moved to new premises in 1906, Bluecoat Chamber faced the possibility of being demolished several times. Following war damage in 1941, the reconstructed building was grade I listed in 1952; the expansion of the city into an international sea port from the 17th century onwards and the resulting transatlantic trade in slaves, brought wealth to Liverpool. Over time, this wealth manifested itself in a number of elegant town houses, many of which are still preserved today.
Liverpool Town Hall was built between 1749 and 1754 to a design by John Wood the Elder replacing an earlier town hall nearby. It was extended and altered by James Wyatt from 1785, its sumptuous interiors are regarded examples of late Georgian architecture. The city's stock exchange and financial district are set behind this building, showing the close ties between local government and commerce; the Anglican Church of Our Lady and St Nicholas is Liverpool's parish church. Colloquially known as "the sailors' church", it has existed near the waterfront since 1257; the current building, designed by Thomas Harrison, was begun in 1811 following the castastrophic collapse of the old tower. While Harrison's tower is still original, the main body of the church has been rebuilt following Second World War damage; some of Liverpool's landmarks are known for their oddness, such as the Williamson Tunnels which are architecturally unique as the largest underground folly in the world. Liverpool has a rich tradition of neo-classical architecture running through the Georgian right to the end of the Victorian period.
Some prime early examples are the Lyceum by Thomas Harrison, Wellington Rooms by Edmund Aikin and The Oratory by John Foster. Impressiv
Liverpool Echo
The Liverpool Echo is a newspaper published by Trinity Mirror North West & North Wales – a subsidiary company of Reach plc and is based in Old Hall Street, Merseyside, England. It is published Monday to Sunday, is Liverpool's daily newspaper; until 13 January 2012 it had the Liverpool Daily Post. It has an average daily circulation of 35,038; the newspaper was published by the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo Ltd. Its office is in St Paul's Square Liverpool, having downsized from Old Hall Street in March 2018; the editor is Alastair Machray, who has edited the Welsh edition of the Daily Post. In 1879 the Liverpool Echo was published as a cheaper sister paper to the Liverpool Daily Post. From its inception until 1917 the newspaper cost a halfpenny, it is now 85p Monday to 90p on Sunday. The limited company expanded internationally and in 1985 was restructured as Trinity Holdings Plc; the two original newspapers had just been re-launched in tabloid format. A special Sunday edition of the Echo was published on 16 April 1989, for reporting on the previous day's Hillsborough disaster, in which 96 Liverpool F.
C. fans were fatally injured at the FA Cup semi-final tie in Sheffield. Every single one of the 75,000 copies printed was sold. In 1999 Trinity merged with Mirror Group Newspapers to become Trinity Mirror, the largest stable of newspapers in the country. In 2018, Trinity Mirror was rebranded as Reach plc. On 7 January 2014 it was announced; the Sunday Echo is "a seventh day of publication, not an independent product", according to the paper. The circulation as 2018 is 35,038 compared to nearly 110,000 copies in 2007. Official website for the Liverpool Echo
