Only a pipe rack!

 I've been away for a few days, visiting Chester – a city I know quite well – and Liverpool, a city I had never visited before, and against which I had long nursed a quite groundless prejudice (probably caused by over-exposure to certain Scouse celebrities). In the event, I found it a fascinating, in places beautiful, city, full of fine buildings, and with a splendid waterfront, albeit one disfigured with some hideous recent crimes against architecture. And the people, such as we came across, were all pleasant and helpful. But the highlight, for me, was undoubtedly the cathedral – not the Roman Catholic one, 'Paddy's wigwam' (a wonderful interior, let down by a messy exterior that is not ageing at all well), but the Anglican cathedral on St James's Mount.
  I knew this building only from pictures and the mixed reports of visitors, and my expectations were not particularly high. Pictures certainly don't do it justice, and I feared it might turn out to be an overblown, essentially arid exercise in an outmoded style (i.e. Gothic). Nothing had prepared me for the breath-taking impact of this vast and astonishing building, the largest cathedral in Britain, and one of the largest in the world: no wonder it took so long to build – all in all from 1904 to 1978. One of the many astonishing things about it is that the architect, Giles Gilbert Scott, was just 22 years old, with no buildings to his name (only a pipe rack!), when he won the commission in open competition – and he was a Catholic, which was hardly a help. Scott's original design inevitably went through many changes over the years, but its essence remained – and that essence is true, living Gothic. Nothing about this cathedral feels like a pastiche; it all breathes the genuine spirit of Gothic (or so it seemed to me). The craftsmanship is of stunning quality, every detail works, there is beauty wherever you look, and the disposition of the vast spaces is brilliantly managed. It's not only the scale that is staggering – it's, well, it's everything. Despite its late date, and despite the competition, I would rate Liverpool Cathedral one of the great Gothic buildings of England.