Lutyens Crypt Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral

The Crypt is reached by a glazed link, found to the right of the Blessed Sacrament chapel, which leads to a glass rotunda housing a spiral staircase and lift. The Crypt is the only part to be built of the uncompleted Cathedral designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1930. The first mass was celebrated in the unfinished Crypt in 1937 and a Pathé News clip records this event. With its high barrel and vaulted ceilings and dark brick work and contrasting grey granite, it gives some feel of the grandeur of the magnificent cathedral planned to stand above it. Designed with a symmetry that was typical of Lutyens, there are two halls (the Pontifical Hall and the Crypt Hall) and two chapels (the East Chapel of St Nicholas and the West Chapel, now the Concert Room) that mirror each other almost exactly.