Christ Church Cathedral

You're standing on the highest point of old Dublin, the spot a Viking king chose for his church. Sitric Silkenbeard, the Norse king of Dublin, made a pilgrimage to Rome in 1028 and, on his return, founded the first cathedral here, a wooden one, on the hill above the harbour at Wood Quay.

1From Vikings to Normans

After the Anglo-Norman invasion, Strongbow and other lords paid for its rebuilding in stone in the 1180s. Much of the nave went up around 1230 in limestone shipped from Dundry, near Bristol, and carved by masons from the same area. Henry II of England heard Mass here at Christmas 1171, and in 1487 the cathedral staged the strange coronation of Lambert Simnel, a boy pretender who claimed the English throne.

2A collapse and a patron

In 1562 the foundations, set on peat, gave way, bringing down the vault and the south wall. The north wall held, and inside you can still see it leaning. By the 19th century the building was in such a poor state that the architect George Edmund Street rebuilt it almost entirely between 1871 and 1878. The bill was paid by Henry Roe, a whiskey distiller, who spent more than £200,000 and ruined himself in the process.

Much of what you see is a Victorian dream of the Middle Ages, built over a genuine Norman crypt.

3What to look for

• The covered bridge linking the cathedral to the Synod Hall, designed by Street.
• The flying buttresses, added in the 19th century largely for show.
• The ruins of the chapter house, in the garden on the south side.