Westminster Cathedral

This heavy decorative church is tucked away in the middle of a busy chopping centre. Their web site describes it as ‘…the mother-church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster. The architectural master-work of John Francis Bentley (1839-1902). The Cathedral is unique – although its prototypes include Santa Sophia in Constantinople, St Mark’s, Venice and many of the ‘primitive’ church buildings of Europe and the Mediterranean. The choice of an Early Christian Byzantine style enabled the structure to be finished within a very short time. It was less costly than any form of Gothic architecture and provided ample space for great ceremonies in an urban setting.’

Perhaps then it is no surprise that the space felt very masculine despite its description ‘the mother church’. It felt dark and heavy, not in an ominous way as if the feminine was omnipresent but neither hidden nor apparent.

It is a place of unrevealed feminine presence, exhalation and of grounding. The blessed water at the entrance was available for purchase. Its clarity and fluidity was a contrasted relief to the solid weighty interior. It represented the hidden feminine, always present, sometimes concealed.