Living Stones : Living Hope - National Cathedrals Conference 2026

Living Stones : Living Hope - National Cathedrals Conference 2026

The Dean, Fr Will Gibbs, Alan Hartwell our COO, together with lay members of Chapter and our Senior Management team attended the Association of English Cathedrals’ National Cathedrals Conference in Bristol last week. Entitled Living Stones : Living Hope the conference received reports on three key pieces of research conducted on English Cathedrals in the last 12 months.  

The first report by Theos, Living Stones : English Cathedrals as Sacred Spaces in Changing Times, looks at the understanding of our the role of our Cathedrals today, and acknowledges both the opportunities and the financial challenge that we face.  St Albans Cathedral is one of the cathedrals studied in this report which you can read here.  

The second piece of research, which is ongoing, has been conducted by State of Life looks at the social and economic impact of our English Cathedrals today.  This work provided a research calculator tool which all cathedrals will be able to use to analyse these statistics locally, and we will be able to get a national picture as well. This work will be complete by the autumn. These two reports were commissioned by the AEC.  

The third report entitled Project Narthex was conducted by BDO and looks at the operational sustainability of our cathedrals.  We have also submitted our information to this piece of research.  

Together these reports tell the story of the vital importance of English Cathedrals in the life of our nation and beyond, as well as the clear financial challenge that 75% of us face to sustain our cathedrals and fulfil our charitable purposes, and in particular the maintenance and conservation of our buildings.  We had an array of interesting and challenging speakers, panel discussions and seminars.  

All of this was held in the welcome and worship of Bristol Cathedral, and the good company of 380 delegates from across our cathedrals and sector partners.  It was a delight to be joined by the Dean of New York, the Very Revd Winnie Varghese, who preached at the closing Eucharist. Dean Winnie reminded us of our core purpose, to be those who proclaim and live the love of God for all people, and who use our voices and what we do to challenge the world to do the same.  Preaching on the beatitudes, Dean Winnie encouraged us ‘Blessed are the activists’.  It was a very rewarding time together and there is opportunity that comes from the Conference to support the way ahead for our English Cathedrals.