St Barnabas: No longer Nottingham's 'Black Cathedral'

Today I was in Nottingham and visited the city's Roman Catholic cathedral St Barnabas.

Its architect and designer was Augustus Pugin, though much of his richly coloured interior was painted over in the 1960s.

When I see footage from that era I am surprised by how dirty everything looks. It's not how I remember it, but it must have been like that.

And the leaflet I picked up at St Barnabas tells me:

Coal fires and smoke meant that by the 1960s St Barnabas was known as the 'Black Cathedral'.

It did not look black in this afternoon's sunshine before the rain set in.