St Albans Cathedral
St Albans, Hertfordshire
This is the oldest site of continuous Christian worship in Britain and stands over the place where Alban, Britains first saint, was buried after giving his life for his faith over 1700 years ago.
The present St Michael’s was built in the 10th century over the site of the basilica, the headquarters of Roman Verulamium. It was probably here that Alban was tried for being a Christian before he was executed outside the town walls, perhaps where St Albans Abbey now stands.
The oldest parts of this Grade I listed church date to before the Norman Conquest. It is the most extant Anglo Saxon building in Hertfordshire.
Highlights include:
- an early medieval interlaced carved stone cross introduced from Italy in the 20th century
- a few medieval tiles in the Lady Chapel
- 14th century brasses
- a 15th century roof and carved corbels
- late medieval paintwork surviving on a rare Doom scene, a nave lancet and a roof beam
- two late medieval doors
- a 15th century octagonal font now known to have been (unusually) carved from a single piece of stone
- a recently rediscovered preReformation altar stone
- a pulpit and table from the late 16th/early 17th century
- a famous 17th century memorial to Francis Bacon
- a royal coat of arms from the reign of Charles II
- 19th century stained glass
- 19th century oak pews largely dating from George Gilbert Scott’s reordering in the 1860s and some of which incorporate early modern linenfold panelling
- a two manual Peter Collins organ (1980)
- eight bells in the tower date from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries