in three stages over two centuries between 1906 and 2009. In April 1889, Pearson's plans for the cathedral were approved for the original site bounded by George, Elizabeth and William Streets.It was a cruciform church with a wide nave, double aisles, apse and ambulatory, short transepts about halfway along the length of the building and an apsidal side chapel on the north. The west front had towers close to the end of the nave. The upper part of the west wall was supported by a relieving arch, which continued the line of the interior cross arches. The towers had massive buttresses. Their strong vertical lines carried on into corner turrets set before pyramidal spires. Pearson died in November 1897, two weeks before Webber presented fresh plans to the cathedral chapter. In 1898, Frank Loughborough Pearson (John Pearson's son and partner) was entrusted to carry out his father's design. In 1899, the cathedral chapter approved Pearson's revised plans only to be forced to reconsider the entire cathedral when the state government bought the original intended site. The present Ann Street site was purchased in late 1899 because it was "central, commodious and had the natural advantage of being able to make the building erected on it a landmark for miles around". Frank Loughborough Pearson spent a year reworking his father's design and, on 22 May 1901, the Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V) laid the foundation stone of the cathedral. In 1903, Bishop William Webber died and in 1904 Frank Pearson submitted his final plans to the cathedral chapter. First stage The first stage of construction began in 1906 and took four years to complete. This included the chancel, sanctuary and ambulatory, the quire and its aisles, the transepts and crossing, the Lady Chapel to the liturgical north of the quire, the double aisles and the first bay of the nave. This first stage was consecrated as the Anglican Cathedral of St John the Evangelist on Friday 28 October 1910. (The building was re-consecrated after each stage of its construction.) Second stage After the Second World War money was raised in the hope of completing the cathedral as a war memorial. In 1947, Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery of Alamein laid a foundation stone for a further two bays of the nave, but construction ceased after the laying of the foundations. In 1965 the second stage was commenced. Work on