Opening date announced for £12.7m Leicester Cathedral extension
A new £12.7m heritage and learning centre at Leicester Cathedral will open in June, senior clergy have confirmed.Work to extend the cathedral, where the remains of King Richard III are interred, began in 2021 and has now been completed.The Diocese of Leicester said the opening of the extension on Saturday 14 June would be a "significant milestone" for the place of worship.The new facility will include an exhibition space with curations about the history of the cathedral and the wider city and will include Roman and mediaeval artefacts.
Dean of the cathedral, the Very Reverend Karen Rooms, said: "The opening of the heritage and learning centre is a transformative moment for Leicester Cathedral and prepares us for the next 100 years."This project has restored and renewed this ancient building and helps us to balance the needs of our services and worship, cultural tourists, school visits, community events, pilgrims and visitors."This new building expresses our commitment to be a cathedral for everyone."
The diocese said it wanted the project to enable the building to "function as a 21st Century cultural space without compromising the sacred workings of a Church of England cathedral".The new centre, paid for through donations, fundraising and National Heritage Lottery Fund grants, will also include an educational space open to schools and community groups.It will also have modern toilet facilities for visitors and provide office space for cathedral staff.An opening ceremony and ribbon cutting has been planned for 11:00 BST on 14 June.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Sun
31 minutes ago
- The Sun
Make your dad feel extra special this Father's Day by sending him a message in The Sun on Sunday
THIS Sunday is Father's Day and we want to know why YOUR dad is the greatest. So if you want to send your dad – or the father figure in your life - an extra special message this Father's Day, now you can with the help of The Sun on Sunday. 1 Email us in your messages of love and appreciation – and we'll print a selection of them in this Sunday's paper. You can tell him why he is the greatest, send him a poem or simply say how much you love him.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Fisherman catches rare lobster twice in two weeks
A fisherman has caught a rare blue lobster twice in a fortnight. Marc Newton, 35, hauled in the brightly-coloured crustaceans from the English Channel just 12 days apart. The fourth-generation fisherman, from Beer, Devon, caught the electric blue lobsters despite extreme odds, which some marine biologists have estimated are about two million to one. The rare colour is caused by a genetic mutation, which prompts the over-production of a certain protein. Mr Newton released the lobsters back into the waters on both occasions. The family fishing boat, Bess, is skippered by his father Jim, who has been fishing since he could walk. Mr Newton said: 'Our family has been supplying fresh local fish from our shop on Beer beach for the last 45 years. 'We're now the fourth generation carrying on this tradition.' He wrote in a social media post: 'Here he is again. On the left, we caught what looks like the same rare blue lobster as the other day. 'What do you think? Same or a different one?' Blue lobsters have been caught near Plymouth, Polperro, and Bangor, Northern Ireland, in recent years. It is even rarer for lobsters to be white in colour – only about one in 100 million are. In 2019, an albino lobster was caught near Scarborough, North Yorkshire, and donated to the National Trust. The lobster's appearance was caused by a genetic defect called leucism, which leaves it with no pigment in its shell. Blue lobster is considered a delicacy, and starred in a lavish state dinner hosted by Emmanuel Macron for King Charles in 2023. The Élysée Palace spent close to €500,000 on the September visit by King Charles and Queen Camilla, which included about €40,000 on wine. The starter of blue lobster and crab was inspired by Louis XIV 's tastes. The feast was executed by a team of 45 chefs led by Yannick Alléno, Anne-Sophie Pic and French pastry chef Pierre Hermé, all of whom have Michelin stars.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Don't let a vocal minority silence Britain's ancient church bells
There used to be a tradition that ringing church bells would drive out evil spirits. Now it's the bells that are being driven out. The latest set of chimes to fall foul of complainers are in Mytholmroyd. It's a small West Yorkshire village, best known as the birthplace of Ted Hughes. Perhaps it was the bells of St Michael's Church that inspired the late Poet Laureate to write in one of his rhymes for children about a bell's 'clang of mumbling boom'. But that clang was far from mumbling for three residents who said they were being kept awake all night by the chimes, ringing every 15 minutes. A noise abatement order imposed on the bells means they now can't be rung at all, so for the first time in 100 years they have fallen silent. There have been similar ding dongs over church bells elsewhere in the past few years: in both Witheridge and Kenton in Devon, in Helpringham in Lincolnshire, and in Beith in Ayrshire, usually by people saying that chimes through the night in these rural neighbourhoods are ruining their sleep. As someone who lives in a city, used to police helicopters overhead, ice cream vans blaring their tinny tunes, trains rattling past, and crowds of students staggering home at night under the influence of numerous intoxicants, I have to say I do find the noise of the countryside rather disturbing. Here in the city, these noises are part of a constant soundscape. In the country, there is an enveloping silence, but then you will be jolted into wakefulness by a cockerel's piercing crow, or a huge piece of farm machinery rattling past, or a herd of cattle lowing their way to milking. But a church bell chime, surely, is in a minor key compared to these other rural interruptions? For me the sound of bells is, well, music to my ears. Despite the planes flying into Heathrow over my head and the police sirens blaring outside my door, I can still hear the sound of a bell nearby, which rings regularly to mark Divine Office being said in a local monastery as well as the Angelus at noon. On Sundays, a peal of bells sounds out at a nearby church, and on weekday evenings too you can hear the ringing, as the tower captain and his team practise Plain Bob Major or Grandsire Triples or one of those other extraordinary mathematical formulas, known as changes, that make up bell-ringing. But the kind of change we don't want is something so quintessentially English as bell-ringing to disappear because after a few people make a fuss, officialdom steps in. The bells of Mytholmroyd were silenced when just three people objected – but the 1,200 residents who wanted the chimes to continue had their petition ignored. It's a growing pattern: a few complaints put an end to chimes that had been loved by communities for generations. Yet there's more at stake here than bells. It sounds a death-knell for our tradition of going with what the majority want.
