Description of the attraction
St Paul's Cathedral is the largest Anglican cathedral in Melbourne, Australia's second largest city. Designed in the Gothic style, the cathedral is the patronal temple of the Archbishop of Melbourne and head of the Anglican archdiocese in Victoria.
The location of St. Paul's Cathedral is very favorable: opposite is the complex of architectural monuments of Federation Square, and diagonally - the largest railway station in the city of Flinders Street Station. Together, these buildings form a kind of historical center of Melbourne.
Since in the 19th century the population of Melbourne consisted mainly of parishioners of the Anglican Church, it was she who was given the best place in the city for the construction of the main cathedral. And this place was not chosen by chance - the first divine services were held here since the city was founded in 1835. Previously, this place was the Cathedral of St. Jacob.
The foundation stone of the new cathedral was laid in 1880. The chief architect was the Englishman William Butterfield, who, however, never visited the construction site itself, which led to numerous disputes between the church authorities in Melbourne and the architect living in London. Due to constant disagreements, the construction of the cathedral was delayed, and was eventually completed by local architect Joseph Reed in 1891. True, the tower and the spire were finally erected only 35 years later! Today, the spire is considered the second highest in the world among Anglican churches.
When the Cathedral of St. Paul was completed, it became the tallest building in the city - it was visible from almost anywhere. But already in the first half of the 20th century, numerous new buildings, growing by leaps and bounds, surpassed the cathedral in height and blocked the view of it.
An organ brought from England is installed in the cathedral - the creation of the famous master T. S. Lewis. This organ, consisting of 6, 5 thousand tubes, is one of the largest in the world, made in the 19th century. In the 1990s, it was restored at a cost of $ 726,000.
Interestingly, for the construction of the cathedral, sandstone was used, which was brought from New South Wales, and not the local limestone, from which most of the buildings built in those years were erected. The sandstone gives the cathedral a warm yellow-brown hue. But the tower was built from a different stone, so its color is slightly different.
