Cambridge Evensongs Rated: King’s College

Evensong is a daily choral service that has been running at Cambridge University Chapels for centuries, offering a moment of calm, music, and reflection in the stunning setting of College Chapels. It descends from Compline, the evening prayers once sung by medieval monks and nuns as they prepared for rest. Back then, services were long, in Latin, and involved a lot of candlelit chanting. But after the Reformation, these traditions were streamlined into the Anglican service of Evening Prayer, which evolved into the Evensong we know today.

At most Cambridge colleges, the service has remained almost unchanged for generations. I find whilst sitting in the chapel before evensong, it’s hard not to feel transported back to medieval Cambridge, making it easy to see why this tradition has endured. Whether you come for the music, the history, or simply a peaceful end to the day, Evensong is a tradition that continues to offer a rare and timeless experience in the heart of Cambridge.

In this series I will be ranking Evensong services across the Cambridge Chapels, telling you the best ones, so you don’t have to go yourself! Today we start with Kings…

King’s College Evensong

Overall Rating: ★★★★★

As a completely neutral and objective observer (who just so happens to go to King’s), I attended Evensong at King’s College Chapel and found it, unsurprisingly, to be perhaps the single greatest event in the history of human civilization.

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Now, I know what you’re thinking— “Surely, it can’t be that good?!” Oh, but it is. In fact, it’s even better than that. From the moment I entered the chapel’s cavernous, gothic embrace, I felt an overwhelming sense of superiority—sorry, I mean, spirituality. The fan vaulting alone is enough to make you weep (as I assume it does for the students who go to other colleges).

And then, of course, there’s the choir. Sure, some of them look like they’re one Evensong away from settling down, getting a mortgage, and raising three chorister children of their own, but man, do they sound good.

The Magnificat? Sublime. The nunc dimittis? Heavenly. The overall experience? Life-changing. If anything, it’s too beautiful, almost as if King’s is deliberately setting an impossibly high standard so that every other chapel service in the world feels like an amateur hour warm-up. Which, let’s be honest, they probably are.

Now, I know the haters will say, “But isn’t this all a bit much?” And to that, I say: “No.” If anything, King’s should consider adding more—perhaps some theatrical lighting, a full orchestra, or an intermission where audience members can take a moment to recover from the sheer transcendence of it all.

In conclusion, King’s College Evensong is the best thing to ever happen to choral music, Cambridge, and possibly Western civilization itself. If you disagree, you are simply incorrect. But don’t worry, King’s will forgive you—because we are, if nothing else, benevolent.

Tips for when you attend:

• Services are every day, 5:15, university members can queue by the Gibbs building, rather than on the right with the tourists.
• Purple service booklets are very useful for following the service, especially if the choir sing in Latin. It also tells you when to turn/stand/kneel/jump/sing/dance.
• Notice the fun Beauford references around the chapel, I’ve never seen so many greyhound carvings/Portcullis’ in my life.
• Cheeky Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn allusion on the woodwork below the organ, single ‘HA’ carving is left behind, the rest were changed to ‘HR’ for ‘Henry Rexus’ rather than ‘Henry/Anne’.
• Chaplin (Mary) and Dean (Steven) are 10/10 friendly and down for a chat.
• Enjoy a eucharist service if that floats your boat on Thursdays, choir in red, full procession, lots of vestments, would’ve been right up Martin Luther’s street.
• Fun, special seating for university/kings members to really help with that superiority complex you’ve got going on.
• Genuinely is rooted in tradition and feels deeply spiritual and reassuring.

Five stars. Would ascend to a higher plane of existence again.

(Image Credit- Evie du Bois)