Cathedral of Saint John and Saint Finbar, Gothic Revival cathedral in Charleston, United States

The Cathedral of Saint John and Saint Finbar was a Gothic Revival cathedral in Charleston, designed by Patrick Charles Keely as a 219-foot-tall structure with a steeple topped by a bronze cross. It was clad in brownstone from Connecticut. Consecrated in 1854, it was destroyed by fire on December 11, 1861; its ruins stood until the 1886 earthquake toppled the tower.

Bishop John England bought the New Vauxhall garden site in 1821 and blessed a house there as a chapel dedicated to St. Finbar. Construction of the cathedral began in 1850 under Bishop Ignatius Reynolds and it was consecrated on April 6, 1854. It was destroyed by the Great Fire of Charleston on December 11, 1861, and its ruins stood until the 1886 earthquake toppled the tower.

The name pairs St. John the Baptist with St. Finbar, patron saint of Cork, whose abbey founded that Irish city. Bishop John England, a County Cork native consecrated in Cork Cathedral, chose the dedication after buying the "New Vauxhall" garden site in 1821. The cathedral was destroyed in 1861, so no devotional traditions survive there; the 1868 William Aiken Walker painting of the ruins, held by the Gibbes Museum of Art and the Carolina Art Association, is what remains.

The cathedral no longer exists: it stood at the Broad Street site now occupied by the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist, so visitors look for the successor building there. The 1868 William Aiken Walker painting of the ruins, held by the Gibbes Museum of Art and the Carolina Art Association, is the way to see the lost structure.

A week before the Great Fire of 1861, the cathedral's insurance policy was allowed to lapse. With the Civil War under way, the ruins stood unaddressed for decades until the 1886 earthquake toppled the remaining tower. The fire also destroyed the diocese's 17,000-volume library and the offices of The Catholic Miscellany, the first Catholic newspaper in the United States.