St. Chad's Cathedral

The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Chad is the seat of the Roman Catholic Province of Birmingham, England, a province of the Catholic Church in Great Britain. It is dedicated to Saint Chad of Mercia.

St Chad's was the first Catholic cathedral erected in England after the English Reformation initiated in 1534 by King Henry VIII. St Chad's Cathedral was built at the behest of Bishop Thomas Walsh, the local apostolic vicar. It was consecrated as a church on 21 June 1841, named a cathedral in 1850 by Pope Pius IX, and declared a minor basilica in 1941 by Pope Pius XII. The first Bishop of Birmingham was William Bernard Ullathorne OSB, whose remains are entombed beneath St Chad's.

The Cathedral was bombed in November 1940. The bomb fell through the roof and bounced from the floor into some central heating pipes, when it then exploded. The water from the damaged central heating pipes then extinguished the subsequent fire.