Westminster Cathedral, Victoria Street, SW1

Despite the plaza in front of it, the exotically Byzantine Catholic cathedral still feels hemmed in by shops and office blocks. The red-and-white striped exterior is brick and Portland stone, the darkly glittering interior still unfinished, though it does contain Stations of the Cross sculpted by Eric Gill.

The exotically European appearance was exploited by director Shekhar Kapur for Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), where it doubled for the Escorial, the Spanish palace of King Philip II of Spain (Jordi Mollà).

Although Alfred Hitchcock’s second American movie, Foreign Correspondent, was shot in Hollywood, a few real London locations were captured by a second unit, including the Cathedral’s campanile, from which cuddly retired assassin Rowley (Edmund Gwenn) plummets to his death.

In 1978 the cathedral became (on the outside, at least) a decadent disco run by Borgia Ginz (Jack Birkett, aka The Incredible Orlando) in Derek Jarman’s punk fantasia Jubilee (the interior was filmed in the old, now gone, Catacomb, a gay coffee bar on Warwick Road in Earl’s Court). After Alfred Hitchcock’s death, this very un-English cathedral was the site of his London memorial service in 1980.

You can follow Rowley by lift to the top of the belltower for a view over central London, though there do seem to be a few too many ugly rooftops (admission charge).

Trivia: the sexually rapacious Eric Gill, who sculpted the Stations of the Cross, was also responsible for the ‘scandalous’ Prospero and Ariel adorning the BBC’s Broadcasting House in Portland Place.

Westminster Cathedral

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007, dir: Shekhar Kapur)
Foreign Correspondent (1940, dir: Alfred Hitchcock)
Jubilee (1977, dir: Derek Jarman)