The Navrongo Cathedral — properly the **Cathedral of Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows** — is one of the most striking pieces of church architecture in northern Ghana, and the **Nania Art Centre**, roughly 20 km to its northwest, is a living shrine of traditional Kassena-Nankana art and architecture. Together they make the Navrongo–Nania axis one of the Upper East Region's richest cultural pilgrimages. **Navrongo Cathedral (Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows)** Navrongo, capital of the Kassena-Nankana Municipality, was the cradle of Catholic missionary work in the far north. The White Fathers (Missionaries of Africa) arrived in 1906, and the cathedral was built between **1920 and 1922** — largely by hand, using local labour and materials. Its fame rests on its extraordinary interior: the walls and ceiling are decorated with **mural paintings and panels depicting the Stations of the Cross and biblical scenes, rendered in a distinctly Kassena idiom** — the figures, motifs and earth-pigment palette owe as much to local wall-decoration tradition as to European religious art. It is often described as the finest example of "inculturated" church art in Ghana. The cathedral is also the seat of the **Diocese of Navrongo-Bolgatanga**, and the surrounding mission compound — with its old schools, presbytery and grotto — is itself a heritage site. The famous **Navrongo mud-brick architecture** and the town's role as the first mission station of the north give the place a weight beyond its size. **Nania Art Centre (about 20 km northwest)** Nania sits near the village of **Sirigu**, in the Kassena-Nankana West District, close to the Burkina Faso border. It was founded by **Monsignor John (Jean-Marie) Vandel**, a French White Father who spent decades among the Kassena-Nankana and became famous for championing indigenous art rather than importing European forms. Nania is best understood as a **total work of art**: a compound of buildings constructed in the traditional Kassena style — thick earth walls, flat roofs, geometric painted decoration — combined with a working art centre where local craftspeople produce and sell **painted pottery, woven baskets, leatherwork, and the celebrated Sirigu wall-painting and mural art**. The centre trained generations of local artists and helped turn Sirigu's painted houses and pottery into a recognised Ghanaian art form. The **Sirigu Women's Organisation for Pottery and Art (SWOPA)**, a few kilometres away, grew out of the same creative ecosystem and is well worth combining with a Nania visit. **Practical notes** The two sites are usually done as a single loop: Navrongo town first (cathedral, mission, the old mud architecture, and the nearby **Navrongo Health Research Centre**, a major malaria and vaccine research institution), then northwest through **Sirigu** to Nania and SWOPA. The road is motorable in the dry season; the harmattan months (December–February) give the clearest light and the most comfortable travel, while the rains (June–September) can soften the untarred stretches. Photography inside the cathedral should be done respectfully and with permission from the parish; at Nania, buying directly from the artists is both the etiquette and the point. As the Akan would say, *"Yɛnni biara nni hɔ a, yɛnni biara"* — nothing stands alone; the cathedral and Nania are two faces of the same story: the meeting of Catholic mission and Kassena-Nankana genius, and the reason Navrongo remains the cultural heart of the Upper East.