MANCHESTER will have a new cathedral soon.
It will be made out of bits of borrowed decking, timber, shingles and knit together with goodwill, charity and sweat and tears.
The timber building with a half-timber effect cladding and shingle roof will cost in total over £400,000 by the time it's finished and will hold over 250 people for worship. Services can also be extended outside to the north.
It will be temporary, a replacement for the big, stone, genuine, Manchester Cathedral next door which will have to close for much of the year for its underfloor heating to be replaced - click here. The real deal will close from 3 April to 1 December, although there will be a viewing gallery into the medieval building.
Originally the idea was to hold Cathedral services in a marquee on Victoria Street outside the West Door, but then something remarkable happened.
Timber Cathedral
"It's been lovely really," says Anthony O'Connor, The Director of Fundraising and Development at the Catheral, describing the process that took place to arrive at the timber structure.
"Cityco offered the Cathedral some decking," says O'Connor. "This had been used in the canal festival at Piccadilly basin. It got me wondering about doing something more substantial than a marquee.
"After all a marquee would look very insubstantial and would be very expensive to heat. So I talked to our good friends at Nikal (a Manchester property company based in Mynshull's House next door to the Cathedral) and they very generously donated substantial funds and know-how via Mark Hopkins to help us realise this building."
"With its insulated walls it will be much more efficient as a structure, more eyecatching and convenient as well for the congregations and visitors and residents of the city."
Mark Hopkins of Nikal and Anthony O'Connor of the Cathedral are feeling well-insulated
The timber building with a half-timber effect cladding and shingle roof will cost in total over £400,000 by the time it's finished and will hold over 250 people for worship. Services can also be extended outside to the north.
The site chosen is over the controversially closed extension of Deansgate, called Victoria Street, the site of much of last year's Dig The City, garden festival.
Gardens and a children's playground will be inserted immediately north of the new building in the next couple of months.
And how did the Mark Hopkins and Anthony O'Connor decide upon the size?
"We used all the decking we'd been given and based it on that," says O'Connor. "The whole exercise has been an example of Manchester working together, the Cathedral, the city, and local enterprise through Nikal, to give something which maybe harks back to the earliest wooden place of worship close to this site more than a 1000 years ago."
The new and temporary Cathedral will open early in April.
You can follow Jonathan Schofield on Twitter here @JonathSchofield or connect via Google+
How the temporary Cathedral will look
Timber Cathedral
Timber Cathedral
Timber Cathedral
Timber Cathedral
Timber Cathedral
Timber Cathedral
How the temporary Cathedral will look
