The Houses of Parliament, or more correctly the Palace of Westminster, doesn’t really need any introduction. It is thanks to a fire which destroyed much of the site of the palace in 1834 that we owe the present design of the building (the Jewel Tower was among the few buildings to survive intact).
St Barnabas has been on my list of places to visit in Nottingham for a while now, somewhere I kept meaning to visit every time I went to the Playhouse nearby, and I finally found time in November to take a look. Designed by Augustus Pugin, the architect of the interior of the Palace of Westminster, construction of the cathedral began in 1842 and it was consecrated in 1844 when a bishop from Rome brought the relics of St Barnabas with him. When it was opened it was the largest Catholic church built in England since the Reformation.
Louise Jayne's Blog 