Cathedral Of St Mary The Virgin - Johannesburg

As one enters at the west door one is immediately confronted with the full beauty of the cathedral, which is built in hard local whinstone to the designs of Mr F L H Fleming and Sir Herbert Baker.

The cathedral has three chapels: the chapel of Saint John Chrysostom; All Souls Chapel, which commemorates South Africans who fell in the Great War; and the Chapel of the Holy Spirit, where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved in a tabernacle. The cathedral has two statues of the Madonna, one stands next to the pulpit, another at the entrance of the All Souls Chapel called Mamasoabi (Our Lady of Sorrows). In the chancel which is at the east end of the cathedral, the high altar with a baldachin forms part of a memorial to John Darragh, the first rector of St Mary's, a huge rood featuring Jesus on  

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his cross, flanked by St. John, Mary, a Roman soldier and Mary Magdalene. The rood also bears the Latin inscription Vere Filius Dei Erat Iste (This Truly was the Son of God). The famous hanging rood which hangs above the chancel steps and dominates the whole church is an almost life size wood carving of the Crucifixion. It was designed and constructed by Baden-Beadle, and was hung in 1957 as a memorial to William Palmer who was dean from 1924 to 1951.