Patrick Comerford
During my visit to Cambridge this week, when I was introducing a visiting friend from Ireland to the Cambridge I have known for almost 20 years, we spent much of the morning in the chapel of King’s College, which is one of the most beautiful buildings in England.
The Chapel of King’s College is probably the most recognisable building in Cambridge and one of the finest examples of late medieval English architecture, with the world’s largest fan vault. It is a landmark that is often used as a symbol of the city of Cambridge, including the logo of Cambridge City Council.
All the guidebooks run out of superlatives to describe the richness of the interior decoration and the sumptuous flowing lines of its structure. With its soaring pinnacles, breathtaking fan vaulting, superb windows, woodwork and stonework, the chapel is the most magnificent building in Cambridge, dominating the city by its size and its beauty.
Yet tourists may too easily forget the chapel is an active place of daily worship.
The young Henry VI founded King’s College in 1441 as the ‘King’s College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas’. It was part of his grand scheme for a college to take graduates of Eton, founded the previous year. The chapel was intended to form one side of a grand court but the residential ranges planned for the other three sides of the court were never complete.
Henry VI compelled landowners in the town to sell him plots along the river, and he proceeded to pull down residences, shops, and even a parish church to make room for his creation. Henry intended his chapel to be without equal. He employed his royal architect, Reginald of Ely, to draw up plans for a church along the lines of a cathedral choir, and Henry laid the foundation stone of the new chapel 580 years ago, on the Feast of Saint James the Apostle, 25 July 1446.
Henry VI soon expanded his scheme, demolishing a large swathe of the town to begin a large court and chapel, and he specified the dimensions of the chapel in his will dated 12 March 1448. The chapel was built in phases by a succession of kings of England from 1448 to 1515, a period that spanned the Wars of the Roses and three subsequent decades. The chapel’s large stained glass windows were completed by 1531, and its early Renaissance pulpitum, dividing the choir from the nave, was erected in 1532-1536.
Reginald of Ely continued to work there until he died in 1471, having designed the general form of the chapel and completed the eastern parts up to the transoms of the windows. The original plans called for lierne vaulting, and the piers of the choir were built to conform with them. Ely probably designed the window tracery at the far east of the chapel’s north side: the east window of the easternmost side chapel, which unlike the Perpendicular style of the others is in curvilinear Gothic style.
The pace of building was greatly reduced after the fall of Henry VI in 1461. The new king, Edward IV, starved the Lancastrian projects at King’s and Eton of funds. As a consequence, the expensive stone vault was abandoned, with a timber roof being substituted, and the grand scheme for the whole college was shelved, not to be taken up again until the 18th century.
After Reginal of Ely died, he was followed as master mason by John Wolryche, who raised the eastern parts to the heads of the windows, and Simon Clerk, who completed and roofed the five eastern bays.
Henry VII visited in 1506, paying for the work to resume and leaving money so that the work could continue after he died. Under Henry VIII, the shell of the building was completed in 1515.
The chapel is 88 metres long, 12 metres in span between the piers and the vault is 24 metres high. The interior, with 12 bays, is the largest in the world covered with fan vaulting.
The fan vaulting was completed in just three years, between 1512 and 1515 by master mason John Wastell, who created the world’s largest fan vault. The vaulting is decorated with intricately carved bosses of wood and stone, featuring heraldic beasts, coats of arms and Tudor motifs.
Many religious sites suffered damage during the English Civil War as Puritans sought to remove or deface iconography they considered inappropriate. Although Parliamentarian troops stationed in Cambridge used the chapel as a training ground, the building was largely untouched. Some sources suggest that Oliver Cromwell, who had studied at Cambridge, ordered its protection. Graffiti left by soldiers can still be seen near the altar, on the north and south walls.
Above the altar is The Adoration of the Magi by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), painted in 1634 for the Convent of the White Nuns at Louvain in Belgium. The painting was installed in 1968 amid controversy over lowering the sanctuary floor leading up to the High Altar. The Tudor steps were built at the founder’s specific request that the high altar should be 3 ft above the choir floor. When the Rubens was installed beneath the east window, many critics felt there was a conflict between the colours and shape of the picture and those of the stained glass.
The windows of King’s College Chapel are some of the finest of their era. There are 12 large windows on each side of the chapel, and larger windows at the east and west ends. With the exception of the west window, they are by Flemish hands and date from 1515 to 1531.
Barnard Flower, the first non-English person appointed as the King’s Glazier, completed four windows. Galyon Hone and three partners – two English and one Flemish – are responsible for the east window and 16 others between 1526 and 1531. The final four were made by Francis Williamson and Symon Symondes. The one modern window is that in the west wall, which was donated by King’s alumnus Francis Stacey and is by Clayton and Bell and dates from 1879.
During World War II, most of this glass was placed in storage as a precautionary measure, but the chapel again avoided damage.
The large wooden screen separating the ante-chapel from the choir and supporting the organ was erected in 1532-1536 by Henry VIII to celebrate his marriage to Anne Boleyn. The screen is an example of early Renaissance architecture and a striking contrast to the Perpendicular Gothic Chapel. The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner said it is ‘the most exquisite piece of Italian decoration surviving in England’.
The brass lectern, surmounted with a small figure of Henry VI, was a gift of Robert Hacumblen, Provost in 1509-1528.
The Tudor choir stalls were made by Peter the Carver, who was also responsible for the screen. The canopies were added in the 17th century.
The chapel of All Souls on the south side was converted in the 1920s into a chapel that remembers the dead of World War I and World War II. The names inscribed on the wall include the poet Rupert Brooke.
Saint Edward’s Chapel on the north side is available for private prayer and contemplation. It includes a Madonna in the Rosary by the Westphalian painter Gert van Lon (ca 1512-1520). Other side chapels house exhibition on the history of the chapel.
The chapel has splendid acoustics and is also the venue for some concerts and college events. Services are sung by King's College Choir from Tuesdays to Sundays, and on Mondays by the college’s mixed-voice choir, King’s Voices. Evensong is at 5:30 except on Sundays, when Evensong is at 3:30. The Sung Eucharist on Sundays is at 10:30. Sir Stephen Cleobury was the director of music for the choir from 1982 until shortly before he died in 2019.
Eric Milner Milner-White (1884-1963), who was the Dean of King’s College, Cambridge from 1918 to 1941, introduced the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols to the chapel. It was first broadcast in 1928 and has become a major part of the BBC’s Christmas schedule.
The Christmas Eve Carol Service or the Festival of the Nine Lessons and Carol Service has been an annual event in the chapel since in 1918. It is broadcast live around the world, and people queue from 11 am for the service at 3 pm service. The BBC has broadcast this service from the chapel each year, and it opens with a solo treble singing the first verse of Cecil Alexander’s ‘Once in Royal David’s City’.
Milner-White was also instrumental in inspiring the composer Herbert Howells to write his Collegium Regale service settings in 1941.
The Revd Canon Dr Hueston Finlay has been the Dean of King’s College since 26 January 2026. He was born in Portlaoise, went to school at Wesley College Dublin and has degrees in engineering and theology from Trinity College, Dublin and a PhD from King’s College, London. He has been the Dean of Magdalene College Cambridge (1995-2004), Vice-Dean of Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle (2004-2025), and Treasurer of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin (2011). The Revd Mary Kells has been the chaplain since 2021.
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