Britains Great Cathedrals_5of6_Liverpool Cathedral
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00:00Britain's cathedrals. Majestic, magnificent, monumental.
00:07For more than 1,400 years, they've dominated Britain's landscape.
00:12Never out of sight, never out of mind.
00:15Epic structures, they represent our history
00:19and the changing fortunes of a nation.
00:22I'm Tony Robinson, and in this series,
00:25I'll be exploring six of Britain's greatest cathedrals.
00:33What a privilege.
00:35Their stories of rivalry and royalty.
00:39Henry was determined to strip the church of its power.
00:43Of struggles and sacrifice.
00:47Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?
00:51Of martyrs and murder.
00:54And they just hacked him down right on the spot.
00:57Containing more than 1,000 years of history,
01:00I'll discover how these buildings were constructed.
01:04Isn't that extraordinary?
01:06How they've evolved and what secrets they hold.
01:17For some buildings, you need a whole dictionary of superlatives,
01:22and Liverpool Cathedral is one of them.
01:25It's the Church of England's newest cathedral,
01:28as well as Britain's biggest.
01:31The bells inside are the highest and the heaviest.
01:36And in its day, it contained the largest musical instrument ever made.
01:42Built on a hill, it dominates the city's famous skyline.
01:47Unlike other stone-built medieval cathedrals,
01:51this one was constructed from steel and concrete,
01:55and more than 11 million bricks.
01:59It's an enormous space, five times larger than the Royal Albert Hall.
02:05The story of our modern age
02:07has been cemented into the walls of this building,
02:10and some of the major events of the last 100 years
02:13have been played out under its roof.
02:16Two world wars,
02:19national tragedies,
02:21as well as historic performances.
02:26Construction on the cathedral began in 1904,
02:30and despite all the interruptions, work never ceased.
02:34Not until it was finally completed in 1978, 74 years later.
02:41For generations, thousands of Liverpool men and women
02:45had worked on it tirelessly.
02:48A cathedral built by the city's people and for the city's people.
02:53From the outside, it's the immense tower that strikes you first.
02:58It soars 331 feet into the sky.
03:01That's more than 100 metres.
03:03Underneath it, there's a cavernous central space,
03:06with the altar at one end, the main entrance and the nave at the other.
03:11Although much younger,
03:13the cathedral's layout is similar to earlier counterparts
03:16like Canterbury and Salisbury.
03:18But inside, there are some major differences
03:21that you notice straight away.
03:28For a start, it's so big!
03:32It's not like any other cathedral I've been to before.
03:35It's like a dance hall.
03:38And look, you can see straight through to the altar.
03:42There's nothing in the way at all.
03:46The nave leads to the awe-inspiring central space,
03:50the main body of the cathedral,
03:52with smaller chapels and memorials to the side.
03:56Next is the chancel, where the choir sits.
04:00Finally, the ornate altar,
04:02with a stunning stained-glass window towering above.
04:08Unlike medieval cathedrals,
04:10there's a real sense of space and openness here.
04:13The scale is stupendous, but it's not intimidating.
04:17It's actually rather welcoming.
04:20I feel at home already.
04:23The cathedral has always been a haven of quiet serenity.
04:28But when construction started,
04:30Liverpool and its port were the complete opposite.
04:34The early 20th century was a thrilling time for the city.
04:38Less than a mile away, the Mersey was buzzing,
04:41with liners taking passengers to America and back again.
04:45The most famous transatlantic ship of them all
04:48is still remembered in the cathedral to this day,
04:51etched into its very walls.
04:55There are so many details here that you wouldn't notice
04:58unless somebody pointed them out to you.
05:00For instance, that shield up there,
05:04you wouldn't have spotted it at all, would you,
05:06if it wasn't for that bright light?
05:08That's actually the Titanic,
05:10which, although it was built in Belfast,
05:13was actually registered in Liverpool,
05:15because that's where its owners, the White Star Line, were based.
05:20She was the pride of the seas.
05:23But on the fifth day of her maiden voyage in April 1912,
05:27the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank,
05:30with the loss of more than 1,500 lives.
05:34Many of the crew, along with the musicians who played on
05:37as she went down, were from Liverpool,
05:40as was her captain, Edward John Smith,
05:43who's also remembered in the cathedral.
05:47Six days after the disaster, they held a memorial service here
05:52for the tragedy that touched a nation and the city of Liverpool.
05:58The sinking of the Titanic is just one of many dramas
06:02from the 20th century connected to this immense cathedral.
06:06But how and why did it rise up in the first place?
06:10When building started, the city already had more than 100 churches.
06:15So why did it need another one?
06:17To find the answer, we have to go back.
06:20In the mid-1700s,
06:22Liverpool was a small town of around 20,000 souls.
06:26By 1900, its population had exploded,
06:30and it was a bustling metropolis of over a million people.
06:35The rapid growth was thanks to the trade
06:38generated by Liverpool's seven miles of docks.
06:41It handled more cargo than London, or indeed any European port.
06:47This boom town officially became a city in 1880.
06:51For a while, the parish church of St Peter's served as its cathedral,
06:55but clearly it was too small for a place this size.
06:59Liverpool wanted a sprawling cathedral for a sprawling city.
07:04Cathedrals have always been at the cutting edge
07:07of construction technology,
07:09statements of engineering genius as much as faith.
07:13Salisbury's 14th-century spire is the tallest in Britain.
07:17400 years later, St Paul's took construction design to new heights.
07:22His home is one of the highest in the world.
07:26Liverpool wanted to outdo London and Salisbury.
07:29They were thinking big,
07:31and they needed an architect with dreams to match.
07:35But who would deliver a mighty new cathedral
07:38worthy of this great city?
07:40And where would they get the money from?
07:45Liverpool Cathedral,
07:47a dominating edifice looking down on the banks of the River Mersey.
07:51A true 20th-century masterpiece,
07:54it's one of Britain's newest cathedrals.
07:57Today, it's an iconic feature of the Liverpool skyline.
08:02But over 100 years ago, nobody knew what it would look like.
08:06To find the best architect to design it, a competition was announced.
08:11In the year 1901,
08:13the Diocese of Liverpool put this ad in the newspaper,
08:17the Committee for the Erection of the Intended Cathedral
08:20being desirous of obtaining designs for a cathedral in the Gothic style.
08:25Well, they got over 100 responses to this ad.
08:30For architects up and down the country, this was the job of the century.
08:35Some of their original design entries
08:37are still held in the cathedral archives.
08:41I'm not sure I would have fancied being on the committee,
08:45making this awesome decision
08:47about which cathedral would dominate the skyline of Liverpool.
08:52This one is dull, isn't it?
08:54I don't even know why he bothered to draw it, to be quite honest.
08:57This one is quite intriguing, with all these spires.
09:01Looks a bit French, doesn't it?
09:04I think it would feel imported if you stuck that on a hill in Liverpool.
09:08Just as the advert demanded, these designs were Gothic,
09:12inspired by the great cathedrals first seen in the 12th century.
09:17Among them all, one really stood out.
09:20This... I mean, this really is a cathedral.
09:24And, yes, it does feel like it's in the tradition
09:28of all those other cathedrals that you see all over the place,
09:31but there's something modern about it as well.
09:34Remarkably, it was submitted by an architect's apprentice,
09:38who, obviously, had hardly designed anything.
09:41Certainly not a building.
09:43Just 21, his name was Giles Gilbert Scott.
09:46One of the judges said about this drawing
09:50that it was power combined with beauty
09:53that makes a great and noble building.
09:56It's a nice thing to have said about something that you'd drawn, isn't it?
10:00I would definitely have gone for the Gilbert Scott.
10:04Has a great deal of promise, this one, I think I'd have said.
10:07But it wasn't so surprising.
10:09Young Giles had been born into a dynasty of architects.
10:13His grandfather was the world-famous Sir George Gilbert Scott.
10:17His work spanned the British Empire.
10:20In England alone, he'd designed 800 buildings,
10:23including the Grand Midland Hotel, St Pancras Station,
10:27and the Albert Memorial.
10:29But what of his grandson Giles?
10:31Well, before he won the cathedral competition,
10:34the only thing he'd ever designed was a pipe rack.
10:38Still, he had his admirers.
10:40One of the judges, George F. Bodley,
10:43passionately believed Giles's design to be the best.
10:46And to crush any concerns about the young winner's inexperience,
10:50Bodley agreed to be joint architect.
10:53This meant that both Giles and George would sign off
10:56on every single design for the whole cathedral,
10:59right down to the door handles.
11:02Intricate carvings would adorn the walls,
11:05and elaborate stained-glass windows would fill the space with colour.
11:10It was designed as a heavenly building.
11:13But it would cost the earth.
11:16The total build was estimated at £500,000.
11:20That's £50 million today.
11:23And none of that money was going to come from the Church of England.
11:28Liverpool Cathedral would have to rely on public donations,
11:32and those donations didn't all come at once.
11:36That meant it was never going to all be built at the same time.
11:39It would be piecemeal, a bit here, a bit there, as the money came in.
11:44But where would that money come from?
11:47Well, this is where we come to the dark part of the cathedral's history.
11:53A lot of it came from the profits from slavery.
11:57Liverpool grew incredibly rich
12:00as a result of the slave trade in the 18th century.
12:04The port was at the tip of a trade triangle involving three continents.
12:09Ships would sail from here to West Africa,
12:12carrying textiles, firearms and alcohol.
12:16Once they arrived, they'd exchange those goods for people.
12:21Those people were then transported to the Americas,
12:24where they were sold as slaves.
12:28Most of them were forced to work on plantations,
12:31producing sugar, cotton and other goods,
12:34which were sent back to ports like Liverpool
12:37and then re-exported all over the world,
12:39generating vast amounts of money for the merchants.
12:43And it was the families of those merchants
12:46who gave huge amounts for the building of Liverpool Cathedral.
12:52At the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool's Albert Dock,
12:56you can identify them.
12:58These are the major donors to Liverpool Cathedral.
13:03Were any of those involved with slavery?
13:06Yeah, the whole family was a Liverpool family
13:09and very, very deeply involved in the trade.
13:15This is typically the kind of family who can,
13:19in one hand, making money with slavery operation,
13:25sell them like animals,
13:27and in the other hand, give money to church.
13:32It's a kind of human paradox.
13:35Generations of the Earle family became mayors of Liverpool.
13:40They even had a street named after them.
13:43They were just one of several families
13:45whose involvement in slavery
13:47generated the wealth on which Liverpool was built.
13:51The Earle family's descendants, who inherited a dubious fortune,
13:56donated £25,000 to the cathedral.
14:02Not all donations were controversial, though.
14:05A wine merchant paid for the marble floor,
14:08a Somerset woman gave £800 for the font,
14:12and local children saved their pennies
14:14to pay for this porch at the Lady Chapel.
14:17It was the first part of the building to be finished in 1910,
14:21and services could be held here until the main cathedral was completed.
14:26It was a little Gothic showpiece.
14:29This part of the cathedral is completely different.
14:32It's much lighter, for a start,
14:34and, I don't know, it's got a more delicate feel about it somehow,
14:38with lots and lots of little windows
14:41and this gorgeous fluted tracery on the ceilings.
14:47But before they could begin work on the rest of the cathedral,
14:50Scott's mentor, George Bodley, died,
14:53and Scott, still relatively young and inexperienced,
14:57was given total control.
15:01With his newfound power, he took everyone by surprise.
15:05He ripped up the old plans and started again.
15:08He dropped all the ornate Gothic detail
15:11and swapped the two towers for one massive central tower instead.
15:17Now working on his own, Scott could fully realise his vision.
15:21It was a modern style for a modern age,
15:24and it called for modern ideas.
15:27Engineering what would eventually be Britain's largest cathedral
15:31required inspiration,
15:33and Scott found it in some of the big industrial buildings
15:37that were going up at the time.
15:39Factories, foundries and mills
15:41were created with the basic building block of the age, brick.
15:46Scott would go on to design his own giant structures, also in brick.
15:52Battersea Power Station and Bankside Power Station,
15:56today's Tate Modern.
15:58He also gave us another modern icon, the world-famous red phone box.
16:03Such achievements would bring him a knighthood,
16:06but Liverpool Cathedral remained his life's masterwork.
16:10After Bodley's death,
16:12Scott's new, improved cathedral began to take shape.
16:16Money was flowing in,
16:18and a bright future for Liverpool and the cathedral beckoned.
16:22Then in 1914, calamity struck.
16:28Europe was rocked by the outbreak of war.
16:33A war which saw the slaughter of millions.
16:38This is the Roll of Honour.
16:40It lists every man in Liverpool who died in the First World War.
16:44There are thousands and thousands.
16:48There's one name, though, that stands out, Noel Chavasse,
16:52who was closely connected with the cathedral.
16:54In fact, his dad, Francis, was the bishop here.
16:58Noel made military history as the only man in the First World War
17:03to win two Victoria Crosses,
17:06the country's highest award for bravery.
17:10But he wasn't a front-line soldier.
17:12He was an army doctor.
17:14In 1916, he was hit by a shell,
17:17rescuing troops stranded in no-man's land.
17:20Noel stayed with them, treating their wounds overnight,
17:23while bombs and sniper fire surrounded him.
17:27These heroics earned him his first Victoria Cross,
17:31and his proud dad said,
17:33so far, you have been known as the son of the Bishop of Liverpool.
17:38Henceforth, I will be known as the father of Captain Chavasse.
17:44Just one year later, Noel was in the line of fire again,
17:48at one of the war's bloodiest battles, Passchendaele.
17:52He bravely went out into no-man's land to rescue injured men.
17:57This time, he was seriously wounded himself.
18:01He kept going out into the battlefield,
18:03locating men, tending to them, and he saved many lives.
18:08But after two days, he was suffering from terrible pain,
18:12from bad stomach wounds, and he hadn't had anything to eat,
18:15and he agreed to have an emergency operation.
18:19And shortly after that, he died.
18:24For his selfless bravery and courage,
18:27he received his second Victoria Cross.
18:30He was just 32.
18:35As for the cathedral, the war had taken its toll in other ways.
18:39Materials, money and manpower dwindled.
18:43The building process slowed down, but it never stopped.
18:47The people of Liverpool were determined to get their cathedral, no matter what.
18:52And in 1924, the partially finished building
18:55was actually ready to unveil its star attraction,
18:59something that would turn a building site into a living, breathing cathedral.
19:06It was only fitting that Britain's biggest cathedral
19:09should house the world's biggest musical instrument.
19:14It's quite extraordinary, the sound's actually bouncing off the walls.
19:19Spine-tingling, I think the word is.
19:29What's it like to play?
19:31It's phenomenal. The feeling of power is immense,
19:34because, of course, the building is huge
19:36and they sculpted an organ to fit the size of the building,
19:39and so it is very, at its loudest, annihilatingly loud.
19:43The thrill is in mixing and matching,
19:45and rather like a good cook in a kitchen,
19:47putting a little bit of herbs in here and spices there,
19:50you can actually mix and match your own stops.
19:53A stop is one of these flutes.
19:59Trumpets.
20:01Trumpets.
20:07And there's a massive trumpet up in the central space, 179 feet.
20:17That's the angels.
20:19It's as though the church itself is playing the music.
20:23Absolutely, yes, yes.
20:25What about keeping it in tune?
20:27It's a big job, yes.
20:29It's a very severe maintenance, the organ.
20:31There are 10,268 pipes and they all react differently.
20:34Just say that number again.
20:3610,268.
20:38This stupendous organ was first played in public
20:42when the royal family came to attend the official blessing of the cathedral.
20:47Thousands lined the roads to glimpse King George V and Queen Mary arriving.
20:53But although they were royalty, that day in 1924 wasn't all about them.
20:59The royal family were 15 minutes early and when he heard that,
21:03the bishop said that they would have to wait.
21:06As you can imagine, the royal ecuries were incandescent.
21:11They said, damn it, man, the king cannot wait!
21:15And it was left to a priest to solve the problem
21:18as diplomatically as he could.
21:21He said, my lord, this service is not for the king,
21:26it's for the Lord Almighty.
21:29And when he said that, the king and queen decided
21:32they would wait, along with everyone else.
21:37As the people of Liverpool celebrated the birth of their new cathedral,
21:41little did they know that another world war was on its way.
21:46One where the city would find itself on the front line.
21:50But would its still unfinished cathedral survive?
21:57Liverpool Cathedral, built with over 11 million bricks and clad in stone.
22:03The First World War had slowed construction to a crawl
22:07and by the end it was still only half built.
22:10Now that the war was over and given the introduction of post-war technology,
22:15they could really get cracking.
22:18Instead of picks and shovels, pneumatic drills were used to dig the foundations.
22:23300 tons of soil were dug out every day.
22:26110 men poured 200 tons of concrete every 12 hours into the ground
22:32to make the foundations.
22:34Some builders had been there since the beginning.
22:37It was a family affair.
22:39These two brothers, the Rowbottoms, worked on the cathedral for 49 years.
22:45Over the decades, hundreds of workers set nearly 5 million bricks
22:50into the walls of the middle section alone.
22:53End to end, they would stretch from Liverpool to Berlin.
22:57And piled on top of each other, they'd reach 40 times the height of Everest.
23:04As donations rolled in, there was finally enough money to build Scott's great new tower.
23:10300,000 pounds, equivalent to 11 million in today's money.
23:15The tower had to be tall and strong enough to house the world's heaviest set of bells,
23:21which Scott himself watched being cast.
23:24But it's customary to throw silver sixpence for luck into the metal.
23:28This superstition is performed by Sir Giles Scott, the architect,
23:31so that now the tenor bell will strike a true and tuneful note.
23:35Bells would have to wait.
23:38200 men had worked on this magnificent tower for five years.
23:43But in 1939, the total workforce on the entire cathedral dwindled to just 35.
23:53The rest had been called up to the armed forces.
23:57A second world war was underway,
24:01and the very future of this building hung in the balance.
24:05The biggest threat to the cathedral was the port.
24:08The trade that flowed through it had generated the money to build it,
24:12but now its existence was putting it at peril.
24:17Liverpool had the largest port on the west coast of Britain.
24:21A whopping 80% of the country's war supplies flowed through it.
24:25For the Nazis, it was the biggest target outside London.
24:30The cathedral had been built on a hill next to the port,
24:34with a great big copper roof and a tall unfinished tower.
24:38It was the perfect target for the German bombers.
24:41They tried to make it less visible from the air by painting the roof black,
24:46and they covered some of the more vulnerable parts with sandbags,
24:50but it was impossible to completely protect such a big building.
24:55In preparation for the inevitable German bombers,
24:58older cathedrals, like Canterbury and York,
25:01removed their medieval glass windows and hid them for safety.
25:05Meanwhile in Liverpool, a fire watch was set up to look for blazes,
25:09and to protect the new cathedral, staff slept in the building overnight.
25:13They included the dean, Frederick Dwelly.
25:16He'd seen the cathedral grow out from the ground.
25:19He certainly wasn't going to abandon it now.
25:22He moved his bed and his wardrobe up to this little room,
25:26right under the flammable wooden ceiling of the Lady Chapel,
25:30much to the amusement of the choirboys, because this was their rehearsal room.
25:36On 28th August 1940, 160 bombers appeared on the horizon.
25:42The terror had begun.
25:46The Liverpool Blitz lasted intermittently for 18 months.
25:5010,000 homes were destroyed, and more than 4,000 people lost their lives.
25:56Bombs narrowly missed the cathedral, blowing off doors and shattering windows.
26:02Millie Sidall, her three-year-old daughter,
26:06and husband George, an engineer at the cathedral,
26:09lived here on Washington Street, just next door to it.
26:13On 5th September 1940, their house took a direct hit and they were all killed.
26:22Despite all the death and destruction, the cathedral carried on holding services.
26:29This is from the Sunday service sheet for 6th October 1940.
26:35It says, just before the list of hymns,
26:38if an air raid warning sounds during a service,
26:42the act of worship will be immediately transferred to the crypt,
26:46where the service will be continued.
26:49Nothing was going to stop the people of Liverpool
26:52from worshipping in their cathedral.
26:55In November 1940, George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth, our Queen Mother,
27:01visited the battered city and its cathedral.
27:05The king said to the dean,
27:07keep going, whatever you do, even if you can only go on in a small way.
27:13Meanwhile, the cathedral remained in the firing line.
27:17Every part of it was battered with bombs.
27:20A couple of small high explosives went off around here,
27:23leaving thousands of incisions in the walls.
27:26There were bombs bouncing off the roof and exploding in midair.
27:31But miraculously, the wind blew the flames away and the cathedral survived,
27:37a beacon of hope among all the carnage.
27:42The last German air raid took place on 10th January 1942,
27:47by which time Liverpool was the most heavily bombed area
27:51of the country outside the capital.
27:53When the Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited, he said,
27:57I see the damage done by the enemy attacks,
28:00but I also see the spirit of an unconquered people.
28:06BELL RINGS
28:12Every day at noon, a bell is rung in the cathedral.
28:16It's from HMS Liverpool, a World War II warship.
28:20The ceremony is in remembrance of all those sailors
28:24who lost their lives in one of the most important
28:27but least known campaigns of that war, the Battle of the Atlantic.
28:32Max Horton was a lay preacher at the cathedral,
28:35as well as a commander in the British Royal Navy.
28:39There was a new and grave danger out at sea,
28:42and it was up to him to tackle it.
28:44As an island nation,
28:46Britain needed more than a million tonnes of imported goods a week
28:50just to survive and fight.
28:52If the war was to be won, Liverpool's port would be vital
28:56in keeping this flow of men and supplies between North America and Europe,
29:00and Germany knew that all too well.
29:02Up to four convoys a week, each with as many as 60 ships,
29:07would race across the Atlantic to Liverpool,
29:10bearing vital troops and supplies
29:13and running a deadly gauntlet of Nazi submarines
29:17which would hunt for them in packs.
29:19These wolf packs, as they were known, were hugely successful.
29:23Between January and July 1942, they sank nearly 400 Allied ships.
29:29The losses were so damaging
29:31that Britain was only weeks away from running out of food.
29:35Churchill later said,
29:37The thing that really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.
29:43It was time for Max Horton to take centre stage.
29:47Horton had been a submarine commander,
29:50and he devised this brilliant strategy
29:52which not only changed the course of the Battle of the Atlantic,
29:56but ultimately helped the Allies win the war.
30:00He formulated it here, in a secret underground bunker
30:04just a mile away from the cathedral.
30:06Bomb-proof and gas-proof,
30:08it had a seven-foot-thick roof and walls that were three feet deep.
30:13Known as the Citadel,
30:15this complex of over 100 rooms covered 50,000 square feet.
30:20How did the U-boats get into the convoys?
30:23There wasn't a steel ring round the convoys,
30:25so the U-boats would literally just slip in
30:27and then start taking pot shots at the boats that were in the convoy.
30:31So what did Max do which transformed that situation?
30:35They went out and hunted the U-boats down.
30:37And that was a risk, you have to remember.
30:39These boats were leaving the convoy and not protecting them any more.
30:42They were going out to try and find the U-boats
30:45and force the U-boats to the surface,
30:47and then quite often they would use their own boats to ram them.
30:50It was a very visceral warfare.
30:52Presumably, this must have had a knock-on effect
30:55to the preparations for D-Day.
30:57Yeah, Roosevelt said,
30:58if we don't win the war in the Atlantic, we won't win the war full stop.
31:02So Horton was fundamental to us winning the war
31:06because he provided a lot of the means
31:08for us being able to conduct D-Day successfully.
31:11That's what I think, certainly, yes.
31:13He was critical unsung hero of the Second World War.
31:16By night, Admiral Max Horton worked in this secret bunker,
31:21but by day, he preached and prayed at the cathedral
31:25for the survival of the free world.
31:28Horton was very keen that the men under his command
31:31should use this cathedral as their parish church.
31:34He came here a lot and actually took part in the services
31:37and eventually became a great friend of the dean,
31:40who, in 1945, wrote him this letter.
31:44My dear Admiral, it means more than you can imagine
31:48that you should take the leading part on these occasions,
31:51for well we know that we owe our very life as an island
31:55to the unconquerable resolve that you, sir,
31:59have inspired, impelled and compelled.
32:03Battered and bruised, but not beaten,
32:06the construction of the cathedral resumed apace following the war.
32:10The great tower was completed and could now fulfil its purpose.
32:1613 bells, the biggest, heavier than Big Ben,
32:20were moulded and brought here on vast trucks.
32:24And the biggest of them all was wheeled in on specially laid tracks.
32:28Weighing in at 14 tonnes,
32:30it was called the Borden Bell, or Great George, after the king.
32:34A team of 12 men hauled it 200 feet up into the belfry
32:38at a rate of just 4 inches per minute.
32:41It was back-breaking work.
32:43Finally, after 10 hours, Great George was ready to be hung.
32:48But there was one more challenge to overcome.
32:52The problem was that the 31-tonne weight of these bells
32:56could force the walls outwards and cause them to collapse.
33:00The solution was to hang them in a way no other cathedral had done before.
33:05Instead of a timber frame, this ring of reinforced concrete,
33:09supported by massive steel girders,
33:12takes the enormous weight, allowing the tower to stand firm.
33:16Len Mitchell's been ringing bells here since the 60s.
33:20How do the bells work?
33:22Well, we pull on a rope from the ringing chamber,
33:24which currently is below us,
33:26and then the rope comes up through from the ringing chamber
33:29and around this wheel, so that when we pull on that rope,
33:32the whole thing goes over.
33:33So it's really exactly the same as they do in the medieval cathedrals?
33:37Oh, yes, absolutely. Yes, indeed.
33:39Slightly more controlled fashion here,
33:41because we leave these bells in what's called the up position,
33:44and we're able to very precisely determine when that bell goes ding.
33:51They were first rung together in 1951
33:55for the visit of the Princess Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip.
34:00They owe their beautiful sound to what's inside each of them, a clapper.
34:05What's that old clapper over there?
34:08This is an example of an old-style clapper.
34:11This particular one is made out of wrought iron.
34:14The mechanism would be that there would be a hinge pin on the inside of the bell,
34:19then the clapper would swing from it like that,
34:21and eventually hit the side of the bell to make the noise.
34:24This bit in there is a piece of leather,
34:28and, in fact, that goes by the name of a leather balderick.
34:32Really? Indeed.
34:34Look, there is the real balderick.
34:40The installation of the bells in 1951
34:43meant the cathedral was now edging towards completion.
34:47But the final landmark would come too late for one man.
34:51Its architect, Giles Gilbert Scott.
34:54He died in 1960, aged 79.
34:59Scott's buried here with his wife next to the cathedral.
35:03He couldn't be buried inside it because he was a Roman Catholic.
35:07He spent the whole of his adult life building this massive monument,
35:11but like the great medieval cathedral builders,
35:14he never lived to see it finished.
35:18In 1978, Liverpool and the whole country did see it finished.
35:27But with the most modern materials and using the most modern techniques,
35:32what could possibly go wrong?
35:35Well, quite a lot, actually.
35:43Liverpool, 1978.
35:46The largest cathedral in Britain opened its doors
35:5074 years after the foundation stone was laid.
35:54It had taken a lifetime to construct.
35:57Its builders and bishops had kept the faith
36:00when money and materials were scarce,
36:02and despite nearly being bombed into oblivion,
36:05it had remained a defiant beacon of hope.
36:08Now, finally, it could be admired in all its glory.
36:13The Queen came to the opening service
36:15where the words of the founding bishop, Francis Chavasse, were read.
36:20He said,
36:22''The new cathedral of Liverpool shall be built by all and for all.
36:27''Where rich and poor meet together, it must be the best we can give.''
36:33Well, it is pretty good, isn't it?
36:38But almost as soon as it was officially finished,
36:41the cracks began to show, literally.
36:44This is the part of the cathedral where the public aren't allowed to go,
36:48which I think is a great pity,
36:50because for my money it's one of the most interesting parts.
36:53You see these massive brick walls?
36:56So they support the roof,
36:59and below me, as they get into the main bit of the church,
37:03they become great arches and columns.
37:08But building with bricks had a fatal flaw.
37:11To this day, the mortar used to bind them wasn't flexible.
37:15If the building moved ever so slightly,
37:18the rigid brick walls couldn't move with it,
37:21and that caused the outer stone cladding to crack.
37:25Some believe that Scott, that most modern of cathedral architects,
37:29could have learnt a thing or two from his much earlier predecessors.
37:33Well, if this was built with the medieval material, lime,
37:36it wouldn't have half of the problems that this cathedral's got.
37:39Well, it's structurally too rigid.
37:41Whereas if this were a medieval cathedral, it were built with lime mortar,
37:45which naturally allows expansion,
37:47and that's why a lot of our medieval cathedrals are still stood there.
37:50When you're constructing something,
37:52there's differential movement between the different materials you're using.
37:56So no expansion, that's going to go...
38:01And in a medieval cathedral, you'll have that,
38:04but the lime works with it.
38:07But this hasn't got any of that, and in one way,
38:10I'm glad because it's keeping me in work.
38:13By the time the Queen, the head of the Anglican Church,
38:16opened this building in 1978,
38:19Liverpool had welcomed a new Catholic cathedral,
38:22just a stone's throw away.
38:25Soon afterwards, people of both religions
38:28prepared to welcome a very special visitor.
38:31In 1982, Pope John Paul II visited Britain.
38:36This broke with nearly 2,000 years of tradition.
38:39No pope had ever been to this country before,
38:42and the last place anyone expected to see him
38:45was in a Church of England cathedral.
38:48After all, the Church of England owed its very existence
38:52to a bitter split from Rome,
38:54caused when Henry VIII demanded a divorce
38:57in defiance of the pope's orders.
39:00But 450 years on, that pope's successor, John Paul II,
39:05was intent on healing those ancient wounds.
39:08And on this momentous visit,
39:10he chose to come to Liverpool's mighty Anglican cathedral.
39:14A million people lined his route,
39:17and once inside, he said a prayer.
39:20Liverpool's Church of England cathedral was such a draw
39:23that even popes wanted to come here.
39:26But now, its role in the city grew even more.
39:29For Liverpudlians, it wasn't just a place for popes and processions,
39:33it was somewhere that ordinary people could live,
39:36celebrate and mourn as one.
39:40Never was that mourning greater than on 15th April 1989.
39:45That day, Liverpool FC lined up
39:48for one of the biggest matches of the season,
39:51the FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest
39:54at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield.
39:57But within seven minutes, the game had to be abandoned.
40:03Poor police control had resulted in dangerous overcrowding
40:07in the Leppings Lane end of the stadium.
40:10There was a deadly crush.
40:12Britain's worst sporting disaster.
40:1696 supporters lost their lives,
40:19the youngest just ten years old.
40:23The disaster led to an outpouring of grief throughout the whole city.
40:28The cathedral opened its doors,
40:30and a fortnight later, it held a memorial service.
40:34Ever since, there's been an annual service here
40:37where friends and family can come and remember the dead
40:41inscribed in this Book of Remembrance.
40:55Football is one of the great enduring passions in Liverpool,
40:59another is music.
41:01Not surprising when you think of all the great bands
41:04that have come from here.
41:08And, of course, there are none greater than the Beatles.
41:11As a student, John Lennon lived in the shadow of the cathedral,
41:15and as a schoolboy in the 1950s,
41:17Paul McCartney failed his audition for the choir.
41:21But in the 1990s, he returned to work with organist Ian Tracy
41:26and the choir to perform his first classical work,
41:29the Liverpool Oratorio.
41:32What was it like working with a Beatle?
41:34Terrific, actually, cos I was a Beatle child.
41:37I went to see all their films, I had all their records,
41:40and to me it was like meeting an idol, a childhood idol.
41:43How did it work, creating it with Paul?
41:45Cos he doesn't read music, does he?
41:47No. He's always reckoned that was in some way inhibiting to creativity.
41:50And he has a tune and he can sing tunes,
41:52and his tunes are real earwigs, you just can't shake them off.
41:55That's been his great success.
41:57That was a non-religious event
41:59in what's essentially a religious space, wasn't it?
42:02Does that happen very much?
42:04It does indeed, because the sacred and the secular
42:06are not poles apart, as people tend to think.
42:08And the building is used for all sorts of things,
42:10school speech days, degree days, dinner parties, concerts,
42:13and the Oratorio is merely one of them.
42:15You know, part of our thing
42:17is to try and involve ourselves in the community.
42:19Liverpool Cathedral was raised by the people of Liverpool
42:22for the people of Liverpool,
42:24and basically our ethos is to hold God before the city
42:28and the city before God.
42:31Today, this great cathedral sits proudly above the city,
42:35as if keeping an eye on the people who built it
42:38and who continue to find peace in it.
42:41Liverpool is one of Britain's most modern cathedrals,
42:44but it still continues to uphold the traditions of the past
42:48and is a monument to our history.
42:50This magnificent building remains central
42:53to the lives of Liverpool's community.
42:56It's where they come to celebrate and mourn,
42:59and to this day, it remains the pride of Liverpool.