Luminescence in Westminster Cathedral

Every first-time visitor to London, I suspect, has Westminster Abbey high on their must-see list. Fewer however make a point of visiting nearby Westminster Cathedral, the city’s central Roman Catholic place of worship. And that’s a shame, as the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Most Precious Blood, to give it its full name, is striking in appearance and has an interesting history of its own.

The building of the cathedral

The cathedral was built around the turn of the twentieth century. At that time the Catholic Church’s hierarchy had only recently been restored in England and Wales. When Cardinal Wiseman, the first Archbishop of Westminster, died in 1865 the church resolved to build a cathedral in his memory. Construction finally started in 1895, with John Francis Bentley as architect. According to the cathedral’s website, the then-cardinal, Cardinal Vaughan had:

three key requirements for his new church:  first, a broad uninterrupted nave with the high altar as the focus; second, a building whose structure could be completed first (the decoration could come later) and third, sensitive to the politics of the age, a desire not to compete with the Gothic grandeur of Westminster Abbey, a near neighbour. The Cardinal wanted a new vision for the new diocese, not a poor replica of the past.

https://westminstercathedral.org.uk/the-cathedral/history-of-the-cathedral/

The Catholic church in England wasn’t rich, and although it had wealthy benefactors who were pleased to donate to the cost of building, funds were limited. Brick was chosen for the exterior. Cheaper than stone, it also echoed the grand buildings (mills and factories) of the industrial age. And the point about interior decoration was key. The decoration in Byzantine churches is applied, rather than integral to the architecture, so finishing the interior decoration of the cathedral could be left to subsequent generations. And while the interior is today very impressive, with some Neo-Byzantine mosaics and substantial monuments, it is not (yet) as richly decorated as Bentley intended.

Luminescence

How ‘over the top’ might this cathedral have looked if its interior designs had been completed? We got some idea of this when we attended a performance of Luminescence, the self-styled ‘immersive 360° video projection concert’. There have been versions of this in many locations; this one was designed to tell the story of the cathedral and its place in London history.

The script was voiced by Hugh Bonneville, the star of Paddington and Downton Abbey. As he related the history of the cathedral’s construction, and we were treated to stirring music and a beautiful choir, the light show aimed to replicate what the intended Byzantine mosaics might have looked like had the whole ceiling, dome and walls been covered in them.

For this week’s Lens Artists challenge, in which Egidio asks us to share images of sights that struck us as ‘over the top’, I have a collection of both still photos and videos taken at the performance. Do please switch your sound on for the videos in order to get a better impression of the experience.

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I attended this performance in Westminster Cathedral in July 2026