Middlesbrough Cathedral

The spiritual home of five bishops and many thousands of the faithful. It was built between 1876 and 1878 on the site of the old St Marys chapel which, in spite of two major enlargements during its thirty years of life, had failed to keep pace with the growth in the Catholic population of Middlesbrough and by the mid 1870s was considered to be unsuited to the dignity of religion. The new St Marys Church was dedicated in August 1878 and early the following year became the Cathedral of the New See of Middlesbrough. By the mid 1970s St Marys parish population was down to some 1500, a mere tenth of the population of 100 years before. The transfer of people became so great that in 1976 Bishop McClean decided to build a new Cathedral in Coulby Newham where many people were planning to settle and a church of some size was needed.

The principal entrance to the nave of the current cathedral is through the good sized narthex, which is offset to some degree in order to give dramatic impact to the first view of the sanctuary. The eye is immediately drawn to the large, colourful and spectacular reredos painting behind the altar. It draws one into the warm, welcoming, light-filled interior of what the late Professor Patrick Nuttgens described as 'an unpretentious but deeply religious place for a worshipping community'.