St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne facts for kids

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Quick facts for kids St Patrick's Cathedral
Cathedral Church and Minor Basilica of Saint Patrick
Gothic Revival central tower of St Patrick's Cathedral
37°48′36″S 144°58′34″E / 37.81000°S 144.97611°E / -37.81000; 144.97611
Country	Australia
Denomination	Roman Catholic
History
Status	Cathedral, minor basilica
Dedication	Saint Patrick
Dedicated	1851
Consecrated	1897
Architecture
Functional status	Active
Architect(s)	William Wardell
Architectural type	Cathedral
Style	Gothic Revival
Years built	1858 – 1939
Specifications
Length	103.6 metres (340 ft)
Width	56.4 metres (185 ft)
Nave width	25.3 metres (83 ft)
Nave height	28.9 metres (95 ft)
Number of spires	3
Spire height	105 metres (344 ft)
Materials	Bluestone
Administration
Parish	St Patrick's
Archdiocese	Melbourne
Metropolis	Melbourne
Province	Melbourne

The Cathedral Church and Minor Basilica of Saint Patrick, often called St Patrick's Cathedral, is a very important church in Melbourne, Australia. It is the main church for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne. The church is also the home of the archbishop, who is currently Peter Comensoli.

In 1974, Pope Paul VI gave it the special title of "minor basilica." Later, in 1986, Pope John Paul II visited the cathedral during his trip to Australia. The cathedral was added to the Victorian Heritage Register on August 5, 1999, meaning it's a protected historical site.

What is St Patrick's Cathedral?
Where is the Cathedral Located?
How Did St Patrick's Cathedral Begin?
Building the Cathedral
Making it Shine Again: Restoration
Music at the Cathedral
Photo gallery
See also

What is St Patrick's Cathedral?

A cathedral is a main church for a bishop or archbishop. St Patrick's Cathedral is built in a traditional way, facing east to west. The altar, which is a special table, is at the eastern end. This direction is a symbol of belief in the resurrection of Christ.

The church's design looks like a Latin cross when seen from above. It has a long main hall called a nave with smaller aisles on the sides. There are also transepts, which are parts that stick out to the sides, making the cross shape. The church also has a special area called a sanctuary with seven small chapels and sacristies (rooms for priests).

Where is the Cathedral Located?

St Patrick's Cathedral is found on Eastern Hill in Melbourne. It's surrounded by Albert Street, Gisborne Street, Lansdowne Street, and Cathedral Place. Just across Gisborne Street, you can see St Peter's Church. This church was built between 1846 and 1848 and is the main Anglican church in Melbourne.

How Did St Patrick's Cathedral Begin?

In 1848, James Alipius Goold became the first bishop of Melbourne. He was the fourth bishop in Australia. Bishop Goold started talking with the government to get land for a church on Eastern Hill. On April 1, 1851, the government finally gave the land to the Roman Catholic Church. This was only 16 years after Melbourne was founded!

Bishop Goold decided to build his main church, the cathedral, on this spot. Since most of the Catholic people in Melbourne at that time were from Ireland, the cathedral was named after St Patrick. He is the patron saint of Ireland.

View of the main entrance to the cathedral

Building started in 1851, but it was slow. Many people left to find gold in the goldfields. By 1856, Bishop Goold asked Charles Francis Hansom to design a bigger church. Only a small part was built. Then, in 1858, Bishop Goold hired a new architect named William Wardell. Wardell was very good at designing churches in the Gothic Revival style. He had designed many Catholic churches in London.

St Patrick's Cathedral is built in the Gothic style from the late 1200s. This style is like the big medieval cathedrals in England. It has detailed designs, especially in the large west window. William Wardell was a very talented architect. He also designed the second St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, which is even bigger than St Patrick's.

St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne. The statue in the foreground is of the Irish nationalist leader Daniel O'Connell

In the 1970s, the building was part of a "green ban." This was when workers refused to work on a site to protect its heritage or environment.

Building the Cathedral

William Wardell was officially asked to design the cathedral in 1858. Building started that same year.

St Patrick's Cathedral with scaffolding and St Patrick's School, Eastern Hill around 1866

Even though the main hall (nave) was finished in 10 years, the rest of the building took a long time. There were delays because of a big economic problem in Melbourne in 1891. Under Archbishop Thomas Carr, the cathedral was blessed in 1897, but it still wasn't completely finished. Building such a huge church from bluestone was very expensive. It took a long time to raise enough money. St Patrick's was one of the two largest churches finished in the 19th century worldwide. The other was St Patrick's Cathedral, New York.

Daniel Mannix became Archbishop of Melbourne in 1917. He really wanted to see the cathedral finished. He made sure the tall spires and other parts were added in the late 1930s. The spires were even built taller than Wardell's first plan! The building was officially completed in 1939.

The cathedral is about 103.6 meters (340 feet) long. It is 56.4 meters (185 feet) wide across the transepts and 25.3 meters (83 feet) wide across the nave. The nave and transepts are 28.9 meters (95 feet) high. The central spire is 105 meters (344 feet) high. The two spires on the sides are 61.9 meters (203 feet) high. The bluestone used to build it came from nearby Footscray.

Making it Shine Again: Restoration

To celebrate 100 years since it was blessed in 1997, the cathedral was closed for all of 1994. It was not changed, but carefully repaired. Money for this came from the government, companies, and people in Melbourne.

The cathedral's beautiful stained glass windows were bent and cracked. It took a whole year to fix them back to how they looked originally. Teams of stonemasons and stained-glass artists used old building methods and materials. These were "lime mortars and materials long-forgotten by the building trade — like medieval times." The repairs from 1992 to 1997 won an award for heritage architecture. A fun fact: one of the gargoyles that was fixed was made to look like the Premier of Victoria at the time, Jeff Kennett.

Music at the Cathedral

Cathedral Choir

Music has been a part of St Patrick's since 1858. The current cathedral choir started in 1939. This happened when the Vienna Mozart Boys Choir got stuck in Australia because of World War II. The choir has between 50 and 60 members. They are all students at St Kevin's College in Toorak. They get scholarships from the church to be in the choir.

Cathedral Singers

The St Patrick's Cathedral Singers were formed in 1996. They help with the music at the cathedral. Mr Christopher Mason has led the Singers since 2015. They sing every week at the Sunday 6:30 pm Mass. To join, you need to try out, and some scholarships are available.

Pipe Organs

The cathedral has a very large pipe organ. The first organ was built in the late 1870s. The current organ was built in 1962–64. It uses many parts from the original organ. It has 81 "speaking stops," which are like different sounds the organ can make. Some of these parts are from 1880 or 1896. The organ was repaired in 1996–97 for the cathedral's 100th anniversary. Besides being used for church services, the organ is sometimes used for concerts and recordings.

Bells

The bells of the cathedral were bought by Bishop Goold in 1851–1852 when he visited Europe. He bought eight bells for about £500. They arrived in Australia in 1853. The eight bells weigh about 3,556 kilograms (7,840 pounds) in total. They were all made by John Murphy in Dublin in 1852.

The bells were first set up near the ground in 1868. About 5,000 people came to the blessing service. The eighth bell has Bishop Goold's coat of arms on it. The bells were later moved to the south-eastern tower.

The bell ringers of St Patrick's started the tradition of ringing in the New Year in 1871. By the 1880s, St Patrick's Cathedral was famous for change ringing in Australia. The bells were rung for the funeral service of Pope Pius X in 1914. By 1959, the bell tower was in bad shape, and the bells could not be rung.

The bells were silent until 1988. They were sent to England to be fixed as part of a big project for Australia's 200th birthday. When they came back, a ninth bell, called an Angelus bell, was added. An electronic system was also put in so the bells could chime automatically. The original way of ringing them by hand was kept, so they could still sound like they were rung by people. The parts that hold the bells had to be replaced again just ten years later. The bell ringers are part of The Australian and New Zealand Association of Bellringers.

These bells are special because they were not tuned when they were made. They also ring in an unusual anti-clockwise direction. They are thought to be the only set of eight bells made by John Murphy that are still used today.