King's College Chapel

Lonely Planet review

In a city crammed with show-stopping architecture, this is the show-stealer. Chances are you will already have seen it on a thousand postcards, tea towels and choral CDs before you catch your first glimpse of the grandiose realty of King's College Chapel , but still it awes. It's one of the most extraordinary examples of Gothic architecture in Britain, and was begun in 1446 as an act of piety by Henry VI and finished by his son Henry VIII around 1516.

While you can enjoy stunning front and back views of the chapel from King's Pde and the river, the real drama is within. Mouths drop open upon first glimpse of the inspirational fan vaulted ceiling, its intricate tracery soaring upwards before exploding into a series of stone fireworks. This vast 80m-long canopy is the work of John Wastell and is the largest expanse of fan vaulting in the world.

The chapel's length is also remarkably light, its sides flanked by lofty stained-glass windows that retain their original glass, rare survivors of the excesses of the Civil War in this region. It's said that these windows were ordered to be spared by Cromwell himself, who knew of their beauty from his own studies in Cambridge.

The antechapel and the choir are divided by a superbly carved wooden screen, designed and executed by Peter Stockton for Henry VIII. The screen bears his master's initials entwined with those of Anne Boleyn. Look closely and you may find an angry human face - possibly Stockton's - amid the elaborate jungle of mythical beasts and symbolic flowers. Above is the magnificent bat-wing organ, originally constructed in 1686 though much altered since.

The thickly carved wooden stalls just beyond the screen are a stage for the chapel's world-famous choir, whose Festival of the Nine Lessons and Carols on Christmas Eve are beamed all over the globe. And even the most pagan heavy-metal fan will get shivers down the spine during Evensong, in which the sound waves almost seem to mirror and mingle with the extraordinary ceiling.

Beyond the dark-wood choir, light suffuses the high altar, which is framed by Rubens' masterpiece Adoration of the Magi (1634) and the magnificent east window. An eye-opening Chapel Exhibition is in the side chapels left of the altar, and charts the stages and methods of building set against its historical panorama.

Audio tours of the chapel are available for around £2 , and guided tours can be arranged at the tourist office.