St. Mark’s Cathedral, Bengaluru: rebuilt twice after fire and collapse, its dome modeled on St Paul’s, London

At number 1 Mahatma Gandhi Road, in the Shanthala Nagar district of Bengaluru, in India, the cathedral of St Mark was built between 1808 and 1812 as an Anglican church for the British garrison and the civil community of the Madras army, with an initial capacity of about four hundred seats. It was consecrated in 1816 by the bishop of Calcutta, since Bengaluru did not yet have a diocese of its own. The official site of the cathedral credits the laying of the foundation stone to the Reverend John Dunsterville, a detail not found in other sources. As the congregation grew, an enlargement project in 1901, followed according to that same source by the collapse of the new structure during the works, a detail not confirmed elsewhere, led to the rebuilding of the church, rededicated on 26 August 1902 by Bishop Whitehead of Madras, with a capacity of seven hundred seats. The architect of this phase, again according to the same not fully corroborated source, was James Ransome. On 17 February 1923 an electrical short circuit devastated the church in a fire, and in February 1924, during the restoration works, the weakened structure collapsed again. The final rebuilding, completed between 1926 and 1927, saw the congregation worship temporarily at St Andrew’s Kirk on Cubbon Road. The building, in colonial Baroque style, is explicitly modelled on the cathedral of St Paul in London, the work of Christopher Wren, with a large dome, a semicircular apse, Corinthian columns and round arches: contrary to what generic tourist sources sometimes report, the style is not Gothic Revival. The cathedral became a seat of the Church of South India after the ecclesiastical union of 1947, formally obtaining cathedral status in 1961, when the Reverend H.F.J. Daniel became the first Indian presbyter in charge. Today it is the mother cathedral of the diocese of Central Karnataka of the Church of South India. No direct link between the cathedral and Field Marshal K. M. Cariappa is confirmed, contrary to a suggestion that has circulated, and his biography does not mention the building. The nearby Field Marshal Cariappa Road, in the same district, is not in itself proof of any personal connection.