Coventry Cathedral

Coventry Cathedral, the new cathedral church of St Michael in Coventry, built between 1954 and 1962 to replace the 15th-century Perpendicular Gothic cathedral gutted by bombing during World War II. The design, by Sir Basil Spence, is unique in linking the new structure to the preserved shell of the old cathedral’s steeple, tower, and outer walls. The new cathedral is sited at right angles to the vestiges of the old, on a north-south axis rather than east-west, and is connected to it by a soaring high-level modern porch in a strikingly different architectural style.

The exterior, built of stone with concrete vaulting, is in a comparatively plain modern style, the chief focus of visual interest being in the interior decoration, by a distinguished array of contemporary designers. Most notable is the huge, brilliantly coloured tapestry of Christ in Glory, the largest in the world, designed by Graham Sutherland, that hangs above the high altar and acts almost as an east window. A great glass screen, delicately engraved by John Hutton, stands at the entrance; from within it allows fine views of the old cathedral and permits Sutherland’s tapestry to be seen from without. In the baptistery window and elsewhere in the cathedral is some abstract stained glass by John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens. St Michael Triumphing over the Devil (1959), the last sculpture of Sir Jacob Epstein, hangs on the east wall.