St Albans Cathedral

Vast out of all proportion to the modern town, St Albans’ majestic cathedral was founded as a Benedictine monastery by King Offa of Mercia in AD 793, around a shrine to St Alban, martyred five centuries earlier. It’s now a glorious mash-up of Norman Romanesque and Gothic architecture, with rounded arches built using bricks salvaged from Roman Verulamium, and the country’s longest medieval nave, adorned with 13th-century murals. A stone reredos screens off the restored tomb of St Alban.