in the chapel of St Augustine, lower down the hill, from 1842. Roofing the building With the Protestant Reformation the Catholic hierarchy had been abolished, and the Church in Rome regulated religious life in England and Wales. The Vatican department of Propaganda Fide appointed Vicars Apostolic (ordained bishops but without the title of bishop) until the restoration of the hierarchy in 1850. In 1846 Bishop William Ullathorne was appointed to the Apostolic vicariate of the Western District. Bishop William Ullathorne (Vicar Apostolic of the Western District, 1846–1848) wrote in 1868:‘My earnest desire was to build a new church in Bristol which might serve as a cathedral…which might serve as a centre for the district. Messrs. Vaughan and Estcourt searched in all directions for a site for the purpose, but all in vain. Mr Vaughan then suggested the consideration of repurchasing the ruin of the great church begun by Father Edgworth at Clifton…a useless ruin for many years, and a disgrace to the Catholic body. It consisted of…the present church standing without any side windows up to within two feet of their present height, and a colonnade of six huge columns raised to half their height in front… It was the opinion of architects and builders that the ruin could not have been roofed, the span being so large, and the walls so thin for carrying the requisite beams… As it stood, except for two windows at the entrance end, it was altogether blind and dark.'Charles Hansom was a Roman Catholic from Yorkshire. He was the architect later employed on the nearby Clifton College in the 1860s, and was brother to Joseph Hansom the ‘cab maker’. Charles had a house at Arlington Villas in Wetherell Place just around the corner from where Bishop Ullathorne lived at 22 Meridian Place. Bishop Ullathorne continues:'I sent for Mr. Hansom; told him he must put his architectural reputation into his pocket, and simply follow my directions… I directed him to raise the walls round to a level for about two feet above their actual height, and then to put in two rows of columns, not of stone, for they would have to come on the crown of the crypt vaultings, but of wood, to be made stouter to the eye by casings. As for their foundation, I said, here is none, and we must run two beams the whole length upon the crown of the