In contrast to the Mersey Funnel, light, airy, undated and modern inside, the Anglican cathedral is over-large, morose, gloomy and charmless. At least, that was my response to it. I love the sunken garden alongside, however, a haven of peace in a big city, even if not exactly cheerful.

An interesting throwaway remark from Raggytash: If we're talking cathedrals Durham tops the list for me. Stunning way to frighten the masses.

A great cathedral has to strike a somewhat delicate balance between grandeur way beyond human scale (let's call it Godly magnificence) and not frightening people half to death via shock and awe. I've been in a good number of churches in ultra-Catholic Italy, large and small, and it often seems to me that the major earthly edifices of Catholicism are indeed frequently designed to terrify. Quite often, the internal architecture is crude and somewhat brutal, and the statuary and other iconography is chunky, unsubtle, dark and, well, looming and scary. Down in the crypt of the Duomo in Naples a large urn under a dedicated altar contains the bones, sticking proudly out of its top, of St Gennaro, martyred in the third century in La Solfatara crater at Pozzuoli. Well I really didn't need to see that! :-)

The non-Catholic cathedrals of Britain often strike that delicate balance a bit more successfully. You can be big and chunky, like St David's and Hereford Cathedrals and Bath Abbey, but still feel welcoming. ;-) if you're ever in Truro, the cathedral, all a bit of a derivative hotchpotch, can still surprise and, sort of, delight.