Westminster Cathedral

Twelve and a half million handmade bricks... that's what it took to build this towering Byzantine marvel between 1895 and 1903, each one shaped by hand in an age when machines were taking over the world. As you gaze up at Westminster Cathedral's distinctive red brick and white Portland stone stripes stretching along Victoria Street, you're looking at Cardinal Herbert Vaughan's brilliant act of architectural defiance... he deliberately chose this exotic Byzantine style to avoid competing with his Gothic neighbor, Westminster Abbey, just down the road. John Francis Bentley, the architect, had never even visited the Byzantine monuments that inspired this design when he first drew up the plans. Yet he created something extraordinary... a building that soars 284 feet into the London sky through its campanile, Saint Edward's Tower, making it one of the tallest structures in Westminster. Those striped walls you see were copied from the candy-stripe mansion flats that already lined Ambrosden Avenue, proving even grand cathedrals can borrow from their neighbors. Step inside and you'll discover the cathedral's beautiful secret... it's deliberately unfinished. Bentley designed those soaring brick vaults to eventually gleam with marble and mosaics from 120 different varieties spanning five continents, but the bare brickwork creates what one critic called "primeval grandeur." The nave stretches 109 feet high... exactly four feet taller than Westminster Abbey's... because sometimes even cardinals enjoy a little friendly competition.