Coventry Cathedral

Initially, in 1942, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott was asked to design a new cathedral. He was the grandson of the famous Victorian architect, Sir George Gilbert Scott, and he submitted his design in 1944. One of his drawings of the proposed interior can be seen above; this image is the one that appeared in the edition of the Coventry Evening Telegraph celebrating the WW2 German surrender on the 7th May 1945. Scott’s idea involved the demolition of part of the old cathedral, although he did plan to incorporate the five-sided apse into his design.

Like the current cathedral, it also would have had a north-south orientation, the ruined apse is just partially visible about half way along the wall on the right.

However, Scott’s design was rejected by the Royal Fine Arts Commission, and so in 1950 a competition was held, open to any architect from the British Commonwealth, to find the most suitable design for the replacement cathedral.