St. Paul's Cathedral (Kolkata)

India / Bangla / Barabazar / Kolkata
St. Paul's Cathedral, designed by W.N. Forbes in 1819, begun in 1839, and finished in 1847 with the help of 15,000 pounds Sterling from the East India Company and 20,000 pounds from Bishop Wilson, who's buried inside. In a rare moment of indiscretion, Murray's handbook describes the cathedral style as "spurious Gothic."

Inside, a statue of Bishop Reginald Heber, Wilson's successor and a leader in the doomed effort to Christianize India. While still in England in 1819, Heber had written "From Greenland's Icy Mountains," a stirring missionary hymn whose final stanza contains the lines: "Waft, waft, ye winds, His story,/ And you, ye waters, roll/ Til, like a sea of glory,/ It spreads from pole to pole." Four years later, and after much hesitation, he accepted the position the position of bishop of all India. He recounts the story in Narrative of a Tour Through the Upper Provinces of India from Calcutta to Bombay, but the work itself wore him out. Three years after arriving in India, he died at age 43 in the south, where he's buried in Trichinopoly. The statue is by Francis Chantrey, a prolific Victorian sculptor.
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Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Paul's_Cathedral,_Kolkata
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Coordinates:   22°32'39"N   88°20'47"E

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  • St. Paul's Cathedral, designed by W.N. Forbes in 1819, begun in 1839, and finished in 1847 with the help of 15,000 pounds Sterling from the East India Company and 20,000 pounds from Bishop Wilson, who's buried inside. In a rare moment of indiscretion, Murray's handbook describes the cathedral style as "spurious Gothic." Inside, a statue of Bishop Reginald Heber, Wilson's successor and a leader in the doomed effort to Christianize India. While still in England in 1819, Heber had written "From Greenland's Icy Mountains," a stirring missionary hymn whose final stanza contains the lines: "Waft, waft, ye winds, His story,/ And you, ye waters, roll/ Til, like a sea of glory,/ It spreads from pole to pole." Four years later, and after much hesitation, he accepted the position the position of bishop of all India. He recounts the story in Narrative of a Tour Through the Upper Provinces of India from Calcutta to Bombay, but the work itself wore him out. Three years after arriving in India, he died at age 43 in the south, where he's buried in Trichinopoly. The statue is by Francis Chantrey, a prolific Victorian sculptor.
This article was last modified 6 years ago