page_title: Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Apostles
section_title: Roofing the building
hierarchical_section_title: Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Apostles / History / Roofing the building
caption_attribution_description: English: Postcard, ProCathedral of the Holy Apostles Bristol, 9 Feb 1912, Roy Vaughan Collection, BRO43207/29/19/9, Bristol Archives
context_page_description: The Pro-Cathedral of the Holy Apostles was the Roman Catholic cathedral in the city of Bristol, England from 1850 to 1973. The Pro-Cathedral was replaced in 1973 by the Cathedral Church of SS. Peter and Paul, also known as Clifton Cathedral. It is a Grade II Listed Building.
context_section_description: With the Protestant Reformation the Catholic hierarchy had been abolished, and the Church in Rome regulated religious life in England and Wales. The Vatican department of Propaganda Fide appointed Vicars Apostolic (ordained bishops but without the title of bishop) until the restoration of the hierarchy in 1850. In 1846 Bishop William Ullathorne was appointed to the Apostolic Vicariate of the Western District. 
  
  Bishop William Ullathorne (Vicar Apostolic of the Western District, 1846-1848) wrote in 1868:
  ‘My earnest desire was to build a new church in Bristol which might serve as a cathedral…which might serve as a centre for the district. Messrs. Vaughan and Estcourt searched in all directions for a site for the purpose, but all in vain. Mr Vaughan then suggested the consideration of repurchasing the ruin of the great church begun by Father Edgworth at Clifton…a useless ruin for many years, and a disgrace to the Catholic body. It consisted of…the present church standing without any side windows up to within two feet of their present height, and a colonnade of six huge columns raised to half their height in front… It was the opinion of architects and builders that the ruin could not have been roofed, the span being so large, and the walls so thin for carrying the requisite beams… As it stood, except for two windows at the entrance end, it was altogether blind and dark.'
  Charles Hansom was a Roman Catholic from Yorkshire. He was the architect later employed on the nearby Clifton College in the 1860s, and was brother to Joseph Hansom the ‘cab maker’. Charles had a house at Arlington Villas in Wetherell Place just around the corner from where Bishop Ullathorne lived at 22 Meridian Place. Bishop Ullathorne continues:
  'I sent for Mr. Hansom; told him he must put his architectural reputation into his pocket, and simply follow my directions… I directed him to raise the walls round to a level for about two feet above their actual height, and then to put in two rows of columns, not of stone, for they would have to come on the crown of the crypt vaultings, but of wood, to be made stouter to the eye by casings. As for their foundation, I said, here is none, and we must run two beams the whole length upon the crown of the vaulting, like the keels of two ships, joint the separate pieces together upon the supporting sub-walls, mortice them into the end walls, and then step the wooden pillars upon them. Having raised these pillars, cased them and expanded the tops into capitals at the height of the walls, we next raised wooden semi-circular arches above them, so as to receive an open roof. This will give us the requisite height and enable the building to carry a roof. We thus succeeded at a small cost in converting the ruin into the present cathedral of Clifton.'
  This 'ingenious, comparatively lightly aisled structure of timber uprights and arches supported a timber roof', was compared to an upturned boat, familiar to Ullathorne from his naval childhood.
  The church was opened by Bishop Ullathorne on 21ˢᵗ September 1848. In 1850, Clifton was made an episcopal see and the church became the Pro-Cathedral, intended to act in this capacity until a more fitting cathedral church could be constructed. Bishop Joseph Hendren became the first Bishop of Clifton (the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Somerset and Bristol), and Ullathorne was made Bishop of Birmingham, and later Archbishop of Birmingham.
  In the ProCathedral Church there were twelve larger-than-life statues of the Apostles standing atop the plinths covering and disguising the original stone columns of the failed building. In addition, there were two or three statues of the Virgin Mary, a statue of the Sacred Heart, and a multiplicity of other statues of other saints including St John the Baptist, St Therese of Lisieux, St Anthony of Padua and St Rock. By the rear door, there was a statue of the Apostle St Peter, his extended foot rubbed smooth by the repeated touching of the faithful as they entered and left the building.
  In the 1870s Bishop William Clifford started
caption: Postcard, ProCathedral, 9 Feb 1912, Roy Vaughan Collection,  BRO43207/29/19/9, Bristol Archives
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