2-703-160 - Historic England Archive/Heritage Images

Cathedral Church of Christ, Liverpool, Merseyside, c1955-c1980. View of The Anglican Cathedral Church of Christ in Liverpool, with St James's Garden in the foreground, seen from the east road boundary of the garden, allowing the vantage to look below into the garden. The image shows the cathedral church sat on a rocky mass on the western side of St James's Gardens, with a wooded slope leading to a clearing with gravestones. The cathedral church is very young, built by Giles Gilbert Scott, assisted by architect GF Bodley, and opened in 1978. Scott's design for the cathedral was presented in 1903 in a competition, and Bodley's assistance was required to aid the young architect. However, the design changed many times throughout Scott's life and the finished church bears little resemblence to the original plan. The church lies north-south, rather than the usual east-west plan, with the nave at the north and the chancel at the south end. The south end of the church is visible, showing the conical roof of the chapter house to the right of the chancel, and the roof of the Lady Chapel can just be seen breaking through the tree canopy to the left. The Vestry Tower is the most prominent aspect of the image, a 331ft high square tower in the centre of the church, engineered by Burnard Green. The top of the tower is elaborate, with octagonal corner turrets slightly shorter than the main tower, and eight pinnacles on each corner of the chamfered tower. The gardens in the foreground were originally the site of a quarry, but were levelled and remodelled into pleasure grounds around 1767. It was consecrated as a burial ground in Januray 1829, and the first burial took place in July of that year. The last burial took place in 1936, and the cemetery remains part of Liverpool's public spaces.