Brummagem Gothickry

A view of the sanctuary of the Metropolitan Cathedral and Basilica of Saint Chad at Birmingham. On Sunday, being free of my usual responsibilities, we headed into the West Midlands and got to Birmingham in time for the Mass at 11 a.m.. St. Chad's, the first cathedral to be erected in England following the Reformation, was designed by the famed gothic revival archtect and ideologue Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin(1812-52) and was consecrated in 1841. Constructed largely in brick with stone features it has a light airy interior with somehat high spindly columns being inspired, it is said, by north German models. Above the original high altar is a reliquary containing bones of St Chad, the seventh century bishop of the Mercians, which, originally enshrined in Lichfield Cathedral, were rescued at the Reformation.