Coventry Blitz the 1950s, designed by the architect Basil Spence. Spence (later knighted for this work) insisted that instead of re-building the old cathedral it should be kept in ruins as a garden of remembrance and that the new cathedral should be built alongside, the two buildings together effectively forming one church. The use of Hollington sandstone for the new Coventry Cathedral provides an element of unity between the buildings. The foundation stone of the new cathedral was laid by the Queen on 23 March 1956. It was consecrated on 25 May 1962, and Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem", composed for the occasion,
Friends of Cathedral Music clerks could watch the weekly football at Newark-on-Trent. There was also a similar incident at Truro Cathedral. Sibthorp, in an effort to reverse the decline in interest in cathedral music after World War II, sought to create a promoting organization the Cathedral Music Advisory Committee. However the committee failed to get off the ground, so he tried a new tack and sent a letter on June 2, 1956, that jump-started a new cathedral music organization, "The Friends of Cathedral Music". Until 1962 FCM met only once a year but because of the interest shown in FCM and due in a