Liverpool artwork of the day – Monday August 6 2007. Liverpool Anglican Cathedral – exterior, construction progress, 1937 – Stewart Bale archive online exhibition. National Museums Liverpool.
The Stewart Bale collection is a rich resource of architectural images, which can be found throughout its entire date span from around 1924 to the early 1980s. Architecture can feature as a record of a building’s completion or construction, as with the two cathedrals, or to cover damage, restoration and building alterations. There is also incidental inclusion in street scenes, shop frontages and window displays plus Stewart Bale’s own photographic interest via his non-commissioned 1613 series, such as Martins Bank, to name but a few. The collection has a particular bias towards Liverpool and has left a unique record of its architectural heritage, a small selection of which is shown here.
Stewart Bale charted the progress of the building of the Anglican Cathedral taking many images of both the exterior and the interior as the building took shape. This view, probably from Gambier Terrace, shows the cathedral’s upward and westward progress (not true west but that assigned by the convention of the building).
A gothic revival building of local red sandstone, the cathedral was the creation of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott; begun in 1904 and completed in 1978.