The Oratory

Infobox Historic building

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caption=The Oratory
name=The Oratory
location_town=Liverpool
location_country=England
latitude=53.3988
longitude=-2.9732
architect=John Foster
client=
engineer=
construction_start_date=1827
completion_date=
date_demolished=
cost=
structural_system=
style=Grecian

The Oratory St James Cemetery, Liverpool, England, is the former Chapel of St James Cemetery. It was designed by John Foster and is a Grade I Listed Building. It stands next to Liverpool Cathedral.

In September 1827, at the ceremony to lay the foundation stone Jonathan Brooks, the Rector of Liverpool said:

:"On the spot where we now stand, will soon arise a specimen of the purest era of Grecian art...long to remain a monument no less of the piety of the age that erected it, than of the classical purity of taste in the architect who designed it. It will possess all those beauties which were characteristic of the noblest, as it was the earliest, invention of the building art — grandeur, simplicity and harmony, united with that degree of ornament with which true taste refines and dignifies the vigorous conceptions of genius. It will be a counterpart of those beautiful and much admired temples of the most polished nations of antiquity: not, indeed, to be applied for the same purposes as they were...but to be devoted to the pure, and simple, and chaste, and impressive services of reformed Christian worship."

It now houses a collection of 19th century sculpture and funeral monuments.

A bronze sculpture by Tracy Emin of a bird on a post stands in front of the building and is visible through the gates. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/merseyside/4293245.stm]

External links

* [http://www.stjamescemetery.co.uk/oratory.htm The Oratory] on [http://www.stjamescemetery.co.uk/ St James' Cemetery website]
* [http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/98382 Geograph photograph]
*IoE|359643