King’s College Chapel

King's College Chapel tickets: which one to buy

The chapel is entered on a college ticket that also covers the front court and the grounds down to the river; it is not cheap by cathedral standards and is timed in summer. Booking online is sensible from June to September and during graduation weeks, when the college closes to visitors entirely. Attending a service is free and is the better way in: Evensong is sung by the college choir on most days in term at half past five, with no ticket, and visitors queue at the side gate beforehand.

The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on Christmas Eve is broadcast worldwide and the queue for it starts the previous night. Guided walking tours of Cambridge include the chapel entry and cost several times the ticket; punting tours pass the back of it and do not go in. Ticket holders may also walk through the college gardens to the river, where the punts pass under the bridge below the chapel.

Visiting King's College Chapel: what to see

Henry VI laid the first stone in 1446 and the chapel took nearly seventy years and five kings to finish, through the Wars of the Roses; the change in stone colour partway up the walls marks where work stopped and restarted. The fan vault, completed by John Wastell in 1515, is the largest in the world, 12 metres wide and unsupported by any internal column, and it is the reason the building is famous. Twenty-six windows of sixteenth-century Flemish glass survive almost complete, having been removed and hidden during both world wars.

The oak screen across the middle, given by Henry VIII, carries the initials of Anne Boleyn and is among the finest Renaissance woodwork in England. Behind the altar hangs Rubens's Adoration of the Magi, given to the college in 1961 and placed low so that it reads from the nave. The side chapels along the north wall hold a war memorial and an exhibition on how the vault was built, with a model showing the stones and their joints.

King's College Chapel opening hours and the best time to go

Open to visitors on most days from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, with substantial variation by term, exam period and event; the college publishes the calendar and it changes weekly. The chapel closes to sightseeing during services. Term-time Evensong is the highlight and is free. Cambridge is busiest from June to September. The glass reads best on a bright day from late morning.

Photography without flash is allowed in the chapel but not during services. Dress is informal. Allow forty-five minutes. The Backs, the meadows behind the colleges along the Cam, give the classic view of the chapel and are free to walk at any hour. Michaelmas and Lent terms are the best time to hear the choir, since the singers are in residence and rehearsing daily.