Pugin restored at Nottingham Cathedral

A £1.69 million grant will see A.W.N. Pugin’s designs recreated in chapels

The glorious colour of A.W.N. Pugin’s designs will be restored to Nottingham Cathedral with a £1.69 million grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

St Barnabas Cathedral, Nottingham was designed in 1841 by the architect Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin. His original stencils, including gold leaf will be recreated in three chapels and ambulatories at the east end of St Barnabas’ Cathedral, Nottingham.

Pugin’s colourful designs – a riot of starry ceilings, floral motifs, foliage and text – were found under layers of grey paint by the conservators, Cliveden Conservation. The restoration is part of “Restoring Pugin”, a £2.3 million project to restore the Grade II* listed building, involving more than 20,000 people across Nottingham.

The architectural historian Sophie Andreae said the grant was “the first major National Lottery Heritage Fund award for a Catholic cathedral in recent years”. Andreae, who is vice chair of the patrimony committee of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, added: “The conservation programme to restore Pugin’s original decorative scheme will be transformational.”

Over the next two years, Restoring Pugin will launch a series of events and resources to raise the cathedral’s profile. These include a video game intended to promote careers in heritage. Pugin’s Revival was designed by local school children, including those with Special Educational Needs (SEND), in partnership with Nottingham Trent University’s Department of Digital Architecture. New information panels, touchscreens, printed and audio-visual materials will also be introduced.

The Bishop of Nottingham Patrick Mckinney said the new grant would “enable Nottingham’s cathedral to become ever more engaged with the wider population of the city, and especially those most in need, aligning with my vision that churches across the Catholic Diocese of Nottingham become ever more outward facing and engaged locally”.

He said it was his “ardent desire” that the restoration should attract “people of all ages and backgrounds” to “experience the Cathedral as a place of beauty, living faith and peace in the midst of the city and a sign of hope in these difficult times we live in”.

This year marks the 175th anniversary of St Barnabas being raised to the status of cathedral. When Bishop Nicholas Wiseman consecrated the cathedral in August 1844 with relics of St Barnabas he brought from Rome, it was the largest Catholic church built in England since the Reformation. 

Renowned for his role as a pioneer of the Victorian Gothic revival, Pugin’s designs at St Barnabas emulated Early English Gothic architecture (1180-1275).

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