Description

SHREWSBURY

SJ4912SW TOWN WALLS
653-1/15/683 (North side)
10/01/53 Roman Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady
Help of Christians and St Peter

GV II*

Roman Catholic cathedral. 1856. By Edward Welby Pugin,
possibly to designs initially prepared by his father
Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. Coursed and squared sandstone
rubble with plain tiled roof.
PLAN: nave and 2 aisles, chancel.
EXTERIOR: nave of 5-and-a-half bays with bellcote corbelled
out over 5-light window in western gable. West porch with
cusped moulded arched doorway and traceried windows in each
side. Ornate canopy over statue on gable apex. Within, a deep
moulded west doorway with short shafts. Lean-to aisles with
eastern chapels with steeply pitched roofs. The bays are
articulated by slim buttresses, and each bay has 3-light
Decorated window with triple quatrefoils to clerestory. The
easternmost bay is narrower. Porch and ante-room added to west
of south aisle, with quatrefoil frieze to parapet, and gabled
porch entrance with shouldered archway.
INTERIOR: nave arcade of 5-and-a-half bays with narrow eastern
bay. Octagonal shafts in a very Early Gothic style, with steep
pointed arches. Western gallery. Nave roof has wall posts
which carry wrought-iron ties, and alternating cross-bracing
and arched trusses. Deep moulding to steeply pointed chancel
arch, with rood of 1885 hanging from the apex. Coved panelled
ceiling to chancel. Gilded reredos with triangular arched
traceried panels with figures in high relief.
South aisle chapel with canted apsidal end, formed like a
reliquary with marbled shafts to sedilia and to entrance arch,
with heavily foliate capitals and cusped triangular arcading
all around the walls. North aisle chapel has richly gilded and
traceried altar. The chapels and chancel were decorated by J
Pippet of Hardman and Co.
STAINED GLASS: very rich in stained glass, mostly in a
medieval idiom: the large west window depicts the English
Martyrs, while in the south aisle, various windows between
1898 and 1906. North aisle chapel has 2 windows by Margaret
Rope showing scenes from the Lives of the Saints, dated 1917.
Stained glass also in chancel and south aisle, largely c1911,
some by Margaret Rope, the rest probably Hardman and Co.
Chancel east window 1862 by Hardman. Low relief stone Stations
of the Cross, 1952 by Philip Lindsey Clarke.
(The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Shropshire:
Harmondsworth: 1958-).

Listing NGR: SJ4915512228

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Shrewsbury Cathedral at Wikipedia
• Shrewsbury Cathedral official website
• Wikidata Q3100

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Farrow & Ball How to Decorate: Transform your home with paint & paper
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)