Westminster Cathedral is decorated with marble from all over the world, possibly as many as 126 different types in almost as many different colours.

The building of the basic fabric of Westminster Cathedral took just eight years from 1895 to 1903. Its interior decoration is still ongoing more than one hundred years later.

Westminster Cathedral was built at the turn of the 20th century in the Christian Byzantine style. Its architect, John Francis Bentley, intended it to stand in complete contrast to the nearby gothic Westminster Abbey.

Financial restraints at the turn of the 20th century meant that this religious establishment was left virtually bare with its decoration in the hands of future generations. Those generations have taken care to create one of London's most unique buildings. Decoration of the floors and lower walls are more or less complete although one doesn't have to look too far to see vast expanses of bare brickwork, arches, alcoves and niches still awaiting artistic embellishment.

The Nave

The nave is lined with dark green columns of verde antico from Thessaly in Greece. This marble comes from the same quarries that supplied marble for Byzantine churches such as Santa Sophia in Constantinople. The nave piers carry the fourteen Stations of the Cross carved by engraver and letterer Eric Gill.

High Altar

The focal point of any religious building must be the High Altar. The High Altar in this church is a 12 feet long solid block of Cornish granite, weighing twelve tons. The altar is sheltered by a towering baldaccino (canopy) in white Carrara marble inlaid with several different types of marble. The canopy sits on eight columns of honey-coloured marble from Verona in Italy.

Chapel of St George and the English Martyrs

St George was a Roman soldier executed in about AD 320 for his Christian faith. The colour red, associated with St George, features strongly in this chapel.

The floor is paved with red and cream marble including dark red French rouge griotte, sometimes called partridge-eye because of its pearly white spots or eyes. The floor's centre piece is an inlaid English rose, the symbol of England. The rose is inlaid with lapis lazuli and mother-of-pearl.

The altar features more red marble - rouge sanguine - from Kleber and on the wall above the altar Greek rosso antico panels are inlaid with mother-of-pearl roses.

Above these panels is Eric Gill's last carving by (1882-1940). It depicts Christ on the Cross supported on his left by St Thomas More, Lord Chancellor of England and on his right by St. John fisher, Bishop of Rochester.

St Andrew's Chapel

St Andrew, the fisherman, is the patron saint of Scotland and Greece and the Byzantine-style decoration of this chapel reflects this. Light grey Derbyshire English marble contains the fossils of thousands of sea creatures and the fish theme continues on the floor where a marble river flows past fish and sea life. The central floor panels are purple and white Arni fantastico from Tuscany. The dark green marble is Connemara and the light green and white marble, featuring twenty-nine sea creatures, came from the Iona marble quarry in Scotland.

The altar consists of three Scottish stones plus white Pentelic marble from Pentelikon, not far from Athens. This is the same marble that was used to build the Parthenon.

At the last count it was estimated that 126 different types of marble, in every conceivable colour, have been used in the Cathedral's decoration. The marbles come from at least twenty-four different countries on five continents.

The church is open Monday to Saturday from 8 a.m., just before early mass at 8 a.m., until 7 p.m. On Sunday the church is open until after the last mass at 7 p.m. Entrance is free but donations are requested to help with repairs and renovations.

Source:

• Westminster Cathedral: The Roman Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral of Westminster, Jarrold Publishing and Westminster Cathedral 2005 ISBN 0-7117-4149-2