The Cathedral Church of St. John the Evangelist, usually known as Salford Cathedral, is a

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

cathedral on Chapel Street in

Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...

, Greater Manchester, England. It is the seat of the Bishop of Salford and

mother church Mother church or matrice is a term depicting the Christian Church as a mother in her functions of nourishing and protecting the believer. It may also refer to the primary church of a Christian denomination or diocese, i.e. a cathedral or a metro ...

of the

Diocese of Salford The Roman Catholic Diocese of Salford is centred on the City of Salford in Greater Manchester, England. The diocese was founded in 1852 as one of the first post-Reformation Catholic dioceses in Great Britain. Since 1911 it has formed part of th ...

, and is a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

St. John's Church, Salford, was built between 1844 and 1848 to designs of

Matthew Ellison Hadfield Matthew Ellison Hadfield (8 September 1812 – 9 March 1885) was an English architect of the Victorian Gothic revival. He is chiefly known for his work on Roman Catholic churches, including the cathedral churches of Salford and Sheffield. Trai ...

(1812–1885) of Weightman and Hadfield of Sheffield, by Benjamin Hollins of Manchester. Hadfield's design for St. John's, the first

cruciform Cruciform is a term for physical manifestations resembling a common cross or Christian cross. The label can be extended to architectural shapes, biology, art, and design. Cruciform architectural plan Christian churches are commonly described ...

Catholic church to be built in England since the Reformation, was closely modelled on a number of noted medieval churches. The "west" (actually south) front and nave are copied on a reduced scale from

Howden Minster Howden Minster (also known as the Minster Church of St Peter and St Paul, Howden) is a large Grade I listed Church of England church in the Diocese of York. It is located in Howden, East Riding of Yorkshire, England and is one of the largest ch ...

in the East Riding of Yorkshire; the choir and sanctuary are closely modelled on those of Selby Abbey in North Yorkshire; the decorations of the

groined vault A groin vault or groined vault (also sometimes known as a double barrel vault or cross vault) is produced by the intersection at right angles of two barrel vaults. Honour, H. and J. Fleming, (2009) ''A World History of Art''. 7th edn. London: Lau ...

are copied from the church of St Jacques in

Liège Liège ( , , ; wa, Lîdje ; nl, Luik ; german: Lüttich ) is a major city and municipality of Wallonia and the capital of the Belgian province of Liège. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far from b ...

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

; the tower and spire, the latter the tallest in Lancashire at the time of building, are derived from the

church of St Mary Magdalene, Newark-on-Trent The Church of St Mary Magdalene, Newark-on-Trent is the parish church of Newark-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, England. It is dedicated to Mary Magdalene and is the tallest structure in the town. There has been a church on this site for 1,000 yea ...

, Nottinghamshire. Two local businessmen, Daniel Lee (d. 1858) and John Leeming (d. 1877), each donated £1,000 towards the cost of the church and furnishings; both benefactors are commemorated in chantries at the

liturgical east Liturgical east and west is a concept in the orientation of churches. It refers to the fact that the end of a church which has the altar, for symbolic religious reasons, is traditionally on the east side of the church (to the right in a diagram) ...

end of the choir. The Cathedral's "east" window of 1856, by

William Wailes William Wailes (1808–1881) was the proprietor of one of England's largest and most prolific stained glass workshops. Life and career Wailes was born and grew up in Newcastle on Tyne, England's centre of domestic glass and bottle manufacturing. ...

of Newcastle, depicts the history of Catholic Christianity in England, from the conversion of Ethelbert by St. Augustine in 597, to the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in 1850. The total cost of building the Cathedral was £18,000. The foundation stone was laid in 1844 by Bishop

James Sharples James Sharples (1751 or 1752, in Lancashire – 26 February 1811, in New York City) was an English portrait painter and pastelist, who moved to the United States in 1794. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1779. Life James was firs ...

coadjutor The term coadjutor (or coadiutor, literally "co-assister" in Latin) is a title qualifier indicating that the holder shares the office with another person, with powers equal to the other in all but formal order of precedence. These include: * Coadj ...

to Bishop

George Brown George Brown may refer to: Arts and entertainment * George Loring Brown (1814–1889), American landscape painter * George Douglas Brown (1869–1902), Scottish novelist * George Williams Brown (1894–1963), Canadian historian and editor * G ...

Vicar Apostolic of the Lancashire District The Apostolic Vicariate of the Lancashire District was an ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in England. It was led by a vicar apostolic who was a titular bishop. The apostolic vicariate was created in 1840 and was replaced by t ...

. The church was opened on 9 August 1848: Bishop Brown celebrated a Solemn High Mass in the presence of the Bishops of the other Vicariates of England and Wales. St. John's was elevated to

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...

status in 1852 following the erection in September 1850 of the Diocese of Salford, becoming one of the first four Catholic cathedrals in England and Wales since the

English Reformation The English Reformation took place in 16th-century England when the Church of England broke away from the authority of the pope and the Catholic Church. These events were part of the wider European Protestant Reformation, a religious and poli ...

. On 25 July 1851 William Turner was consecrated the first Bishop of Salford in St. John's. In the same ceremony the Rector of St. John's, George Errington was consecrated first Bishop of Plymouth. Thirty years later in October 1881 a violent storm caused serious damage to the Cathedral's spire. Canon Beesley, then the administrator, succeeded in raising funds for repairs to the spire and generally refurbishing the fabric of the building. He also oversaw the furnishing of the new chapel of the blessed sacrament in the 'south' transept in 1884, to designs of

Peter Paul Pugin Peter Paul Pugin (1851 – March 1904) was an English architect. He was the son of Augustus Pugin by his third wife, Jane Knill, and the half-brother of architect and designer Edward Welby Pugin. Life and career Peter Paul Pugin was only a ...

, third son of

A.W.N. Pugin Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin ( ; 1 March 181214 September 1852) was an English architect, designer, artist and critic with French and, ultimately, Swiss origins. He is principally remembered for his pioneering role in the Gothic Revival st ...

By early 1890 the last £1,000 was paid to settle the original debt for the building of the Cathedral, which led to the consecration of the Cathedral in the same year by the second Bishop of Salford,

Herbert Vaughan Herbert Alfred Henry Vaughan, MHM (15 April 1832 – 19 June 1903) was an English prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Westminster from 1892 until his death in 1903, and was elevated to the cardinalate in 1893. He was th ...

, later to become Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. In 1919–20 the turrets on the "west" front were found to be in danger of collapsing into the street below. They were taken down and rebuilt by the Sheffield firm of O'Neill & Son under the direction of Charles M. Hadfield, grandson of the Cathedral's original architect. In 1924 the War Memorial Chapel in the "north" transept was opened, commemorating the fallen in World War I. By 1934 the Cathedral's spire was found to have strayed from the perpendicular and the Civic authorities ordered that some sixty feet be removed. Repairs were not completed until 1938. Restoration and repair of damage sustained in the Second World War was carried out in the immediate post-war years. Further restoration and re-ordering were carried out in 1971–72 at a cost of £80,000. This included the erection of a new free-standing altar located under the crossing, following the

Second Vatican Council The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the , or , was the 21st Catholic ecumenical councils, ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. The council met in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome for four periods (or sessions) ...

. A further re-ordering of the choir (chancel) took place in 1988, including the removal of the original stone High Altar and Reredos, installed in 1853-55 to designs by

George Goldie Sir George Dashwood Taubman Goldie (20 May 1846 – 20 August 1925) was a Manx administrator who played a major role in the founding of Nigeria. In many ways, his role was similar to that of Cecil Rhodes elsewhere in Africa but he did ...

. A new stained-glass west window was installed in 1994, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the laying of the Cathedral's foundation stone. Its title is ''When I am lifted up I shall draw all to myself'', and it depicts, in somewhat abstract form, the crucified Christ flanked by the Virgin Mary and the Cathedral's patron, St. John. Restoration of the external stonework to the spire and 'west' (i.e. south) front took place in the spring of 2007. Further major repairs to the roof and masonry to stop leaks within the church took place in 2018. In November 2021, it was announced that Salford Cathedral would be closed for the year until 2024 due to a multi-million-pound restoration project. This is set to include reinstalling some of the cathedral's Victorian heritage which was stripped in the 1970s and a new roof being added to the building.

Organ

A new four-manual digital organ was installed by Makin in 2002. While digital organs are still uncommon in cathedrals, the current instrument has a versatile stop list and is an improvement on its predecessor, with speakers located in the clerestory windows above the nave to help with choir and congregational singing. The current organ replaced a two-manual Jardine pipe organ which was installed in 1951; the console located in the south aisle near the crossing, with the pipe case in the west gallery. The Jardine instrument was a rebuild of a short-lived experimental design by Compton of 1938, involving remote pipework relayed into the Cathedral by microphones and loudspeakers, with some of the Compton pipework re-used in the Jardine instrument. The earliest instrument in Cathedral records was a four-manual instrument by W.E. Richardson sited in the north transept, installed in 1887.

References

External links

Salford Diocese pages on Salford Cathedral
{{Roman Catholic Cathedrals in the United Kingdom Churches completed in 1848 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United Kingdom

Grade II* listed cathedrals Roman Catholic churches in Greater Manchester Roman Catholic Diocese of Salford Matthew Ellison Hadfield buildings Churches in Salford

History

Organ

See also

References

External links