Manchester Cathedral

Cathedral with a tower built in front to the west

The Manchester Cathedral is the cathedral church of the Anglican Diocese of Manchester. She is St. Maria , St. Dionysius and St. George consecrated.

history

Cathedral 1903

Aerial view of the cathedral

On the site of today's cathedral there was probably a church as early as the 8th century. The successor building stood until the early 15th century. The current church was built between 1421 and 1506 as the collegiate church of a priestly college; the main nave was built between 1465 and 1481. In the 16th century the sacred building became the Anglican parish church of Manchester during the Reformation .

When Manchester grew rapidly in the 19th century as a result of the industrial revolution, the church was elevated to the status of cathedral for the new Diocese of Manchester in 1847. Since then there has been almost no interior alteration, only repair and restoration work. This included the fact that the tower, which was dismantled in 1864, was rebuilt in 1868 in the same shape, but a little higher. In December 1940, German bombs destroyed most of the northeast of the cathedral; the restoration took place from 1941 to 1960.

In 2007, electronics giant Sony apologized for using the cathedral as a virtual backdrop for bloody fights in the action computer game Resistance: Fall of Man .

Building description

View through the cathedral to the choir

Detail: stone carvings

The cathedral is mainly built in the late Gothic perpendicular style. In the tower, which is built in front of the church in the west, there is a fan vault . The flat roof of the main nave is supported by seven transverse beams, to which angels (with musical instruments from the 15th century) carved from wood are attached.

The “Chapter house” was built in the 15th century on the south side of the choir as an octagon building . In the early 16th century, the "Jesus Chapel" was built by the Bexwicke family between the chapter house and the eastern end of the south aisle.

To the north of the choir, which takes up about half the total length of the cathedral, St. John's Chapel was built in 1513, the chapel of St. John the Baptist , built as a regimental chapel to thank the British for the victory over the Scots. Chapel of the Manchester Regiment since 1936, it was badly damaged in 1940 and then restored.

The end of the choir is the Lady Chapel (Marienkapelle); it was also destroyed in the air raid in 1940 and then rebuilt.

In 1891 an entrance was created on the western south wall of the nave. The entrance to the cathedral in the western area of ​​the north wall of the nave, the "Victoria porch", was built in 1897 by the architect Basil Champneys .

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  Stem

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  Exterior view of the choir room

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  Choir room

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  View from the aisle

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  Detail: choir room

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  View into the Regiment Chapel

Furnishing

Redesigned windows

• The stained glass windows in the west, which were destroyed in 1940, were redesigned by Anthony Hollaway : in 1973 he created the St. George window to the right of the west entrance, in 1976 the Denys window to the left of the west entrance, in 1980 the St. Mary's window on the west side of the tower, in 1991 the window of creation and in 1995 the window of revelation, both as well to the west of the church.
• The "Chetham statue" dates from 1853; In the 17th century, Humphrey Chetham founded a boys' school in the former priest college 200 m away (today a music school for choir girls and boys).
• The rood screen is a testament to medieval carving.
• To the left of the rood screen, the “Engelstein” (a small stone with a relief representation of an angel) reminds of the Anglo-Saxon predecessor church (7th / 8th century).
• In the choir you will find a late Gothic choir stalls with the misericordies that are often found in England , these are carved representations below the folding chairs, depicting figures and scenes from everyday medieval life and the fantasy world of that time. They date from the early 16th century.
• In the floor of the choir there are grave plaques made of brass, the "brasses".
• The medieval wooden partition wall to the Lady Chapel (from 1440) remained almost intact in 1940.
• The "Fraser Chapel" at the southeast corner of the choir commemorates the second bishop of Manchester, James Fraser (1870–1885), who is buried here in a high grave . Modern works of art are displayed in the chapel.
• The chapter house shows murals from the 20th century, including a modern-clad Christ.

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  window

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  Sculpture group

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  Choir stalls

organ

The organ was built by the organ builders Harrison & Harrison (Durham) from 1952 to 1957 as a replacement for an instrument built by the organ builders Hill & Son in 1871 and destroyed in a bombing in 1940. In today's instrument, however, pipe material from the previous instrument is still built into it. In the course of time the instrument has been rebuilt several times and added a few high pressure registers. Today the organ has 89 registers on four manuals and a pedal. The pedal is divided; some of the registers can swell. The playing and stop actions are electro-pneumatic. There are currently plans to build a new instrument in the historic organ case of the Chancel Organ from the 15th century.

I Choir C – c 4 Cantabile Diapason 8th' Stopped Flute 8th Gemshorn 4 ′ Flauto Amabile 4 ′ Twelfth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′ Fifteenth 2 ′ Tierce 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′ Twenty Second 1' Clarinet 8th' Tremulant Contra trumpet 16 ′ trombone 8th' Octave trombone 4 ′ Orchestral tuba 8th'

II Great C – c 4 Contra salicional 16 ′ Diapason I 8th' Diapason II 8th' Clarabella 8th' Principal 4 ′ Salicet 4 ′ Forest flute 4 ′ Twelfth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′ Fifteenth 2 ′ Seventeenth 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′ Fittings III-IV Contra trumpet 16 ′ trombone 8th' Octave trombone 4 ′ French horn 8th' Orchestral tuba 8th'

III Swell C-c 4 Contra Dulciana 16 ′ diapason 8th' Echo Salicional 8th' Dulciana 8th' Voix Celestes 8th' Lovely covered 8th' Principal 4 ′ Clean tide 4 ′ Fifteenth 2 ′ Larigot 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′ Sesquialtera II Mixture IV Contra skin boy 16 ′ Skin boy 8th' Tremulant Double trumpet 16 Trumpet 8th' Clarion 4 ′ French horn 8th'

IV Solo C – c 4 Contra Viole 16 ′ Viole d'Orchestre 8th' Viole Céleste 8th' Viole Octaviante 8th' Cymbel III Pointed flute 8th' Flûte Harmonique 4 ′ Nazard 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′ Block flood 2 ′ Flageolet 1' Orchestral oboe 8th' Vox Humana 8th' Tremulant French horn 8th' Orchestral tuba 8th'

Pedal C – g 1 not swellable Double Open Wood 32 ′ Open Wood 16 ′ Open metal 16 ′ Bourdon 16 ′ Salicional 16 ′ Octave Wood 8th' Octave metal 8th' Principal 8th' Bass flute 8th' Salicet 8th'

(Continuation) Octave Quint 5 1 ⁄ 3  ′ Great Octave 4 ′ Fifteenth 4 ′ Flood 4 ′ Mixture III Sharp IV Double ophicleide 32 ′ Ophicleide 16 ′ Clarion 8th'

(Continuation) swellable Viole 16 ′ Dulciana 16 ′ Dulciana Principal 8th' trombone 16 ′ Skin boy 16 ′ Octave skin boy 8th' French horn 8th' Orchestral tuba 8th' Orchestral Clarion 4 ′

literature

• Cathedral of S. Maria, Denys, Georg. (Leaflet, German, after 1995)
• Christa Grössinger: The Misericords of Manchester Cathedral. 1980
• Peter JC Smith: Air Force over Manchester. The Blitz years 1940-1944.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sony's apology  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ More information about the organ
3. ↑ cf. the information ( memento of the original dated May 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the cathedral website 

Web links

Commons : Manchester Cathedral  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Cathedral website (English)
• The interior of the church as a panorama picture (English)

Coordinates: 53 ° 29 ′ 6.8 ″  N , 2 ° 14 ′ 40.3 ″  W.