Clifton Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of SS. Peter and Paul is the Roman Catholic cathedral of the city of Bristol. Located in the Clifton area of the city, it is the seat and mother church of the Diocese of Clifton and is known as Clifton Cathedral.
It has been a Grade II* Listed Building since 2000. A 2014 study noted it to be the only Catholic church built in the 1970s to have been Grade II* listed. It was the first cathedral built under new guidelines arising from the Second Vatican Council.
In 1965 Sir Percy Thomas & Son were commissioned to design Clifton Cathedral, a new Roman Catholic cathedral for the city of Bristol. The cathedral was consecrated in 1973, by which time the architectural practice was known as Percy Thomas Partnership.
The grade II* listed Roman Catholic cathedral was designed by Ronald Weeks with his colleagues Frederick S Jennett and Antoni Poremba at the Percy Thomas Partnership. This was Weeks' first major design for the firm, which he joined in 1965, later becoming a partner, then director and finally chairman in 1997 before his retirement in 2001, the year after he saw his cathedral listed.
The design brief was for a 1,000-seat church, with the congregation grouped closely around the High Altar so that they should feel and be a part of the celebration of the Mass, in a building that would last 300 years. Ronald Weeks worked closely with the Church team to develop their ideas for the cathedral. Although Weeks was not a Catholic, he thought that this was an advantage: 'It's surprising how much people take for granted. Not being Catholics we could ask all sorts of questions which appeared naïve – like – "What is an altar?", in which one would get conflicting answers... each question would lead to a discussion which in turn helped to banish pre-conceived notions so we could plan right from scratch.
Ronald Weeks presented many potential shapes and forms for the basic ground plan: one like a conch shell; a fan-shaped plan (rejected as it covered the whole of the available site); a circular plan; a coil-shaped plan, and a helix-shaped plan with great concrete beams in a swirling staircase reaching into the sky. The final design was based on groups of hexagons. For Ronald Weeks the 'architecture then flowed logically form the functions, ...moulded in three dimensions to create the internal environment.'
The arrangement of the different parts of the church placed those of least (liturgical) importance on the periphery leading progressively to the more important elements and to the High Altar. The volume of the church expands from an intimate height to a soaring hexagonal spire over the High Altar, and the amount of daylight increases in proportion to the liturgical significance of the space. The concept was that on entering the cathedral at the Baptistery the people would be reminded of their own baptism (and entry into the Church), and from their places in the Nave participate fully in the celebration of the liturgy at a maximum of 15 metres from the High Altar with no pillars or columns intervening. Every effort was to be made to ensure that the interior should be free from distraction in order to help the worshippers to focus their attention on the Gospel being proclaimed and the service of worship in the liturgy, with no windows in the sight-line of the nave.
