King's College Chapel
It took 100 years, five kings and a civil war to finish King's College Chapel, and it still holds the world's largest fan vault, floating over a space with no pillars.
Published
Quick Facts
- Location
- King's College, King's Parade, Cambridge
- Built
- Foundation stone laid 1446; stonework finished 1515; glass completed by 1531
- Founded by
- Henry VI, who also founded King's College in 1441
- Length
- About 88 metres (289 feet)
- Height
- Roughly 24 metres (80 feet) to the vault; pinnacled towers rise higher
- Style
- Late Gothic, Perpendicular, with a fan-vaulted ceiling
- Famous for
- The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, broadcast every Christmas Eve
- Art treasure
- Rubens's Adoration of the Magi (1634) above the altar
A ceiling that seems to defy gravity
Look up inside King's College Chapel and the roof seems to hang in the air. The fan vault, completed in the early 1510s, is the largest in the world. It spans the whole length of the building with no aisles and no columns to interrupt it. The ribs spread out from the walls like stone palm fronds, meeting in the middle. Each of the 12 bays is carved with huge bosses, among them Tudor roses and portcullises, the emblems of Henry VII. The vault is made of stone, and the weight of each bay is carried outwards to the great buttresses on the outside of the chapel. The master mason John Wastell designed it. It was one of the last great achievements of English medieval building, finished just before the Reformation changed the country.
Five kings, one civil war and a very long wait
Henry VI laid the foundation stone in 1446. He wanted a chapel that would dwarf anything else in Cambridge, for a college set up to send scholars from Eton, his other foundation, to the university. Then the Wars of the Roses broke out. Henry was deposed and the money dried up. Work stopped and started for decades. It was only when Henry VII and then Henry VIII stepped in with funds that the building was completed. By 1515 the stonework was finished, and the glass followed. It is a stone record of royal politics. The Tudor emblems carved all over the chapel are a reminder of who paid to get it finished.
The glass that survived
The chapel has 26 great windows, and most of their original 16th-century glass is still there. That is unusual. Much English stained glass was smashed in the Reformation and the Civil War. The windows tell Bible stories in paired scenes, with episodes from the New Testament set beside Old Testament events that were believed to foreshadow them. Several designers and glaziers, including Flemish craftsmen, worked on them. During the Second World War the glass was taken out and stored for safety, then put back afterwards. It is one of the best surviving sets of its kind in Europe.
A Rubens above the altar
Behind the altar hangs Rubens's Adoration of the Magi, painted in 1634. It was given to the college in 1961 by a donor, Major Alfred Allnatt, who had bought it for a record price at the time. The painting sits in a chapel designed centuries earlier, and the combination is surprising. The Flemish baroque painting adds colour and drama to a Gothic interior that is otherwise pale stone and glass. The wooden screen that divides the chapel was built in the 1530s, and carries the initials of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. It is a rare survival of Renaissance carving in England.
Why the world hears it every Christmas Eve
The chapel is best known for its choir. The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols was first held here in 1918, and the BBC has broadcast it since 1928. It has become a fixture of Christmas for millions of people. The service opens with a solo treble singing the first verse of Once in Royal David's City. The choirboy is not told until just before the service starts that he has been chosen. The college choir itself goes back to the founding years of the college, and the boys attend the college's own choir school.
What to look out for when you visit
Stand at the west end and look along the whole length of the chapel. It is about 88 metres long, but only around 12 metres (40 feet) wide, and it soars to about 24 metres (80 feet) at the vault. The effect is of a huge, tall stone ship. Look up to find the royal badges on the bosses. Then find the screen and the initials of Henry and Anne. Outside, the view of the chapel from the Backs, across the river and the meadows, is one of the best known in England. The chapel stands high above the college lawns and dominates the Cambridge skyline.
Notable people
- Henry VI
- Henry VII
- Henry VIII
- John Wastell
- Peter Paul Rubens
- Alfred Allnatt