Blackburn Cathedral

I decided to pick up my quest to visit all the North West’s cathedrals today, and visited Blackburn.

It’s not a tourist destination. Looking around the cathedral, there were only two people in the building - me, and a lady ready to greet anyone who entered.

It’s a relatively new cathedral. The diocese was created in 1926, and it took until the 1960’s for the work to enlarge the existing parish church to be completed (and then the lantern tower had to be essentially done again, which took until the 1990’s to finish off). It’s a light space within, with interesting sculptures and artworks. I liked it.

I went for a cup of coffee and a scone at a connected café, which was much busier. When I returned to the cathedral the group in the blip image were listening to a guide talking about the layout of the building and how it related to the western Christian tradition. The lady I had first met explained that they were from Blackburn College, and were learning English. The town does a lot to support refugees and asylum seekers, including 200 enrolled at the College to learn English and be helped to understand how things work here. She also explained that primary school children come here, and to a local mosque (a quarter of the population is Muslim), as part of their curricular activities.

I liked the sculpture of Christ above the west door. He stands in front of a boat like shape which represents a loom. This links to this part of Lancashire’s industrial growth, based on the spinning and weaving of cotton. Most of that is now sadly gone.