Visit to Canterbury Cathedral October 2026

In 1067 fire consumed the early 7th-century church constructed after Augustine’s missionary campaign reintroduced Christianity to Kent in 597. Today’s cathedral, seat of the senior primate of the English Church, bears witness to successive building campaigns that stretch from the late 11th to early 15th centuries. Traces of Archbishop Lanfranc’s Romanesque church (1070-7), based on Norman models, survive in the crypt, a space vastly enlarged and furnished with superb, carved capitals, when Archbishop Anselm re-modelled the eastern transepts and choir (1093-1109). After a fire in 1164, the interior of Anselm’s choir was rebuilt by William of Sens; one of the earliest examples of the “New” or Gothic style in England. Archbishop Thomas Becket’s murder in the cathedral in 1170, and 1173 canonization, prompted a re-design of the cathedral’s eastern end: the Trinity Chapel, home to Becket’s lost shrine set within a surviving scheme of unparalleled miracle windows, and Corona Chapel beyond, provided space for the monastic community to celebrate their saint, and accommodate visiting pilgrims. The cathedral is also justly famed for later medieval monuments, including the statement tomb of Edward the Black Prince (d. 1376) and Henry Yevele’s soaring Perpendicular nave (1377-1405).

The Visit will conclude at approximately 4.30 pm.