from the Dean

I have just returned from a few days at the National Cathedrals Conference in Bristol. A lot of work is being done at the moment to clarify the value of our Cathedrals in society, and we were pleased to be introduced to the report by Theos entitled ‘Living Stones: English Cathedrals as Sacred Spaces in Changing Times’. You can find the report here.

The report helpfully captures much of a Cathedral’s gift to the present age, but it also highlights that the country’s Cathedrals are in “serious difficulty”, with 80 per cent in structural deficit. “The pressures of financial survival can consume so much energy and attention that there is little left for the deeper questions of purpose and mission,” it says. It also notes that many in the country are ‘“pleased that cathedrals exist, glad to benefit from them and even emotionally attached to them, but they do not automatically infer from this that they bear any responsibility for sustaining them”. 

We also heard a passionate and highly articulate speech from Sir Paul Ruddock. “Last year, some ten million visits were paid to the 42 Anglican cathedrals of England. That is similar to the British Museum and Tate Modern combined. It is several times the gate at Wembley, Twickenham and Lord’s combined,” he said. 

“They are, simultaneously, among the most visited tourist attractions in England and the largest free, 12-hour-a-day public spaces in their cities. They are, I think, the only buildings in this country which combine, on the same site and often on the same day, a service of eucharist, a meeting of the local council, a graduation ceremony, a homeless drop-in, a chamber concert, a bell-ringers’ practice, a school carol service, and a quiet visitor sitting alone at the back of the nave, having, perhaps, the most important conversation of their life.” 

Cathedrals were doing “public work, civic work, that nothing else in the country can do”, almost entirely at their own expense, he said. 

“None of us alive paid for them — none of us alive built them. The question, in our generation, is whether we will leave them in a state at least as good as that in which we found them. 

“I think we will,” he concluded. “I do not believe that a country whose cathedrals are loved by such people is in any imminent danger of letting them go. But love is not enough. Love must, at some point, take out its chequebook. Love must lobby the Government. Love must serve on the fabric committee. Love must, when the bucket is passed at the back of the nave, put something in it.” 

I will try to get hold of the full speech and post it here in due course. 

I know that the Deans, COOs and CFOs, were helped to hear the conclusions being reached about both the value and need of our Cathedrals, because many of us can have sleepless nights with the pressures of raising finance to maintain the mission and fabric of these incomparable places that lie at the heart of our cities. We need more partnership from Government, the Church Commissioners, and the general public, if the value and contribution of our precious Cathedrals is to be not only recognised but maintained.