Westminster Cathedral

Westminster Cathedral was built between 1895 and 1903 on the site of a prison, and John Francis Bentley chose a neo-Byzantine style in banded red brick and Portland stone specifically so it would not invite comparison with Westminster Abbey up the road. The interior was designed to be covered entirely in mosaic, and the lower walls carry marble from over a hundred quarries and mosaics added through the twentieth century, but the money ran out and the upper walls and domes remain bare soot-darkened brick, which produces an unexpectedly powerful effect and which many now argue should be left alone. Eric Gill carved the Stations of the Cross between 1914 and 1918. A lift runs up the eighty-seven-metre campanile for a view over Westminster.

What you actually see

• The bare brick vaults - upper walls left undecorated when funds ran out.
• The marble and mosaic - lower walls faced in stone from a hundred quarries.
• Gill's Stations of the Cross - fourteen carved reliefs from 1914 to 1918.
• The campanile - an eighty-seven-metre tower with a lift and a view.

When to go

Year-round; the cathedral is free and open daily, with services closing parts. Sung liturgy by the cathedral choir, one of the few in England singing daily, is the best time to hear the acoustic. The tower lift keeps shorter hours.

Honest expectations

It is frequently confused with Westminster Abbey, which is a different building of a different denomination ten minutes away. The interior is dark. The tower charges while entry is free.

Nearby

Victoria station is opposite; Westminster Abbey and Parliament lie ten minutes east.