Manchester Cathedral

There has been a church on the site of Manchester Cathedral for probably a thousand years or more, but the basic structure of the present building is 15th-century work. This was an exceptionally large and splendid structure for the small market town that Manchester then was. By the early 19th century, however, the church lay at the centre of the appalling slum area. With the urban regeneration scheme that has transformed the centre of the city since 1996, the Cathedral is again taking its place at the heart of the metropolis. This lavishly illustrated guide chronicles the development of Manchester Cathedral from an ancient parish church to the heroic survivor of industrial surge and decline and of bomb damage. Specially commissioned photography vividly records both the modern and the traditional aspects of this celebrated building.