The cloisters connect the cathedral with the church of Our Lady (Liebfrauenkirche), a beautiful building in the form of a circle intersected by a cross, with a lofty vault, built 1127-1143, and said to be the oldest Gothic church in Germany.
Loretto School, one of the foremost public schools in Scotland, occupies the site of the chapel of Our Lady of Loretto, which was founded in 1534 by Thomas Duthie, a hermit from Mt Sinai.
They named their town by anticipation, Our Lady of the Victory (Victoria); but it cost them some hard fighting with the Goagnazes to justify the title.
Other churches are the Gothic church of the Holy Ghost; the churches of St Severin, of St Paul and of St Gertrude; the double church of St Salvator; the Romanesque church of the Holy Cross; the pilgrimage church of Our Lady of Succour (Mariahilf); the church of the hospital of St John; and the Romanesque Votiv Kirche.
Among its institutions are the Ferguson Library (1882; with 16,000 volumes in 1909), several private schools, a Y.M.C.A., the Stamford Hospital (private, 1893), two private sanatoria, the Convent of our Lady of Lourdes, St John's Church House, a day nursery (1902), with dispensary and kindergarten, and the Stamford Children's Home (1895).
