Contractually obligated cathedral post

 Liverpool (sabbatical 2, Week 2)

Anglican Cathedral

Andrew and David will be happy that Craig's getting his cathedral fix in now, perhaps he'll be sated by the time they get over here!  Liverpool has two cathedrals (one Anglican, one Catholic), but perhaps as famous as these two is the Church of St. Luke, known colloquially as "The Bombed-Out Church".  In May 1941, it was hit with an incendiary bomb and mostly burned, except of course for the stone walls, facade, and bell tower.  Left as a war memorial, the city converted it into an event space.

Moving not too far south, we come to Liverpool (Anglican) Cathedral.  Although started in 1904, it has a much older feel to it.  It survived the war virtually unscathed (just a few broken windows, according to the tour guide).  It is, in fact, the largest church in the British Isles, and #5 in the world (depending how you measure it of course, but "fifth" is what the tour guides tout).  It is quite sparse except for some beautiful stained-glass windows.  The outside is distinctive, being built from locally-quarried red sandstone blocks.

Finally there's Paddy's Wigwam..... or rather, the Liverpool Metropolitan (Catholic) Cathedral.  Not to be outdone by the then-under-construction largest church in Britain, in 1930 the local Catholic bishop commissioned plans to build a church with the largest dome in the world.  Unfortunately, costs ballooned and the funding model - local fundraising - was insufficient.  This led to a new design in 1962, and the result is the very modern church pictured.  Of course, most of the Catholics in Liverpool have Irish roots ("Paddies"), and the design does resemble a pre-colonial indigenous plains tent, hence "Paddy's Wigwam".

Paddy's Wigwam (l) and Bombed-Out Church (r); note how sky shows through windows (red arrow)