jewel casket

Indeed, only scale really separates Wilson's inventive designs for pendants, tiaras and chalices from his unexecuted contribution (in collaboration with Lethaby, Weir Schultz, Whall and others) to the 1902 Liverpool Cathedral competition; with its rippling roof, sculpted ornament and clustered windows it would, if built, have been a sort of giant jewel casket, albeit of masonry, concrete and glass.

When Basil Spence was chosen to build a new cathedral for Coventry to sit alongside the bomb-scarred ruins of its mediaeval predecessor, he avoided the Bishop's suggestion that the cathedral be 'built to enshrine an altar' around which the people of the diocese might gather, and instead followed a more conventional vision of a cathedral as a building that would bring people to their knees before 'the Majesty, the Eternity and the Glory of God.' He was going to provide a plain jewel casket , he said, with many jewels inside, the biggest and brightest being the altar.

One device set mirrors inside a jewel casket. When the faceted mirror-orb was spun round, the jewels around the walls of the casket multiplied a-hundred-fold, like a ballroom mirror ball.