A field guide to the carol services of Cambridge

If you love Christmas — and if you don’t, why are you even reading this? — there are few cities better than Cambridge. Glittering stonework, overpriced hot chocolate, and the sinking realisation that your term/year/life (delete as appropriate) has been spectacularly unproductive aside, the real draw is the music.  

Growing up in a sleepy Home Counties town, nothing said ‘Christmas’ more than the sound of Good King Wenceslas drifting across frosty meadows and hushed cloisters. Cambridge takes all that and turns it up to eleven: centuries-old chapels, world-class choirs, and enough festive magic to make even the grumpiest third-year grin. Hence the inspiration for my daring odyssey – the Great Cambridge Carol Service Crawl, a somewhat reckless but wholly joyous attempt to cram in as many services as possible before Michaelmas draws to a (frankly, long-overdue) close.  

Robinson 

My carol service crawl began inauspiciously – Robinson’s chapel, much like the college itself, bears a remarkable resemblance to one of the nation’s less architecturally distinguished juvenile detention centres. Suffice it to say expectations were low and I was feeling about as festive as a frostbitten Ebenezer Scrooge.  

But Robinson came out swinging. The service was a rapid-fire succession of poplar Christmas hits, from Ding! Dong! Merrily on High to Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, that would melt the hearts of even the hardest cynic. A particular shoutout to the amazing organist, whose introduction to O Come, All Ye Faithful brought a wonderful joy and energy to the much-loved carol. In short, no frills, no obscure 15th century chants – but boy did Robinson summon up the Christmas spirit in spades! 

Emmanuel 

A public health warning: going from Robinson to Emmanuel in one evening may cause severe architectural whiplash. Instead of redbrick realism, Christopher Wren’s stunning 17th century chapel is the kind of Baroque masterpiece that any discerning historian would salivate over. The choir too is one of the finest in Cambridge — and I promise I’m not just saying that because several friends sing in it… 

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This was, however, very much an evening for the connoisseur. I’ve been to more carol services than your average GP would consider healthy, but even I’d never heard of most of the (hauntingly beautiful) pieces on the programme. The lone ‘classic’ was Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, belted out at full volume by a congregation audibly relieved to come across lyrics they actually knew. Still, hearing Veni, Veni Emmanuel echo through the chapel of Emmanuel College felt wonderfully fitting, and Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day — complete with a surprise tambourine — was nothing short of a toe-tapping showstopper. 

Great St Mary’s 

A sneaky addition, I know. But although it isn’t a traditional college carol service, GSM’s carol service starred the Cambridge University Schola Cantorum, a university-wide choir formed last year to replace the sadly-disbanded St John’s Voices.  

The evening put an entertaining spin on familiar traditions – with the choir occasionally fanning out throughout the church to immersive effect. Again, all the classics made an appearance but, for me, the standout performances were asoaring rendition of the Sans Day Carol that seemed to lift up the lofty Tudor rafters and a stunning arrangement of In Dulci Jubilo by German composer Praetorius.  

Queens’ 

By my fourth service in as many days, I was in desperate need of a hot chocolate. A “quick”  detour to Costa (The Tab does not, tragically, have an expenses account) meant that by the time I arrived at Queens’ Chapel — a genuinely stunning Victorian building — all the good seats were gone.  

 Or so I thought… 

I ended up in the antechapel. Reader, it was worth it. Sitting behind the choir as they processed into the chapel, candles in hand, singing Once in Royal David’s City, felt like something out of a 1950s BBC Christmas special. The premiere of a hauntingly beautiful rendition of Silent Night (arranged by choral scholar Caleb Richards) was also a delight.  

The highlight, though, had to be the Dean of Chapel’s address on the importance of passion. The Reverend Tim Harling trained as an oceanographer and retains an infectious academic interest in giant coconut crabs. As he divulged his plans for a death-defying, nocturnal expedition to the remote Indonesian island where these “crustaceous, dinosaurian, bird-eating beasts” (his words, not mine) live, I found myself wishing my lecturers had even a tenth of the eloquence and zeal displayed by this wonderfully cool, ecclesiastical David Attenborough.  

Trinity 

I first went to the Trinity Bridgemas Carols last year, after my friend and I couldn’t get tickets to the main college service. Our initial disappointment quickly gave way to joy – and a new annual tradition.  

This service provides the best of both worlds – all your favourite carols sung in one of the most beautiful settings in Cambridge. The service was so relaxed that the two of us (whose combined musical ability might, on a good day, rival that of an elderly bullfrog with laryngitis) felt perfectly at ease belting out festive favourites, even while seated next to the (intimidatingly brilliant) choral scholars themselves 

In the end, it was an unexpectedly personal, nostalgic experience – the combination of marble floors, close friends and O Little Town of Bethlehem made me feel, for one fleeting moment, like that small, stripy-blazered schoolboy, bewitched by the hush and sparkle of the end of term.  

King’s 

Yep. That one. The broadcasting phenomenon responsible for the popular misconception that all Cambridge students sped our Decembers, floating ethereally beneath medieval fan vaults instead of crying into unfinished essay drafts. Getting a ticket to King’s makes winning next week’s Euromillions look like a statistical certainty – unless you have friends in high places. Which I do – a first-rate chap whom I now owe five gold pieces, an engraved Montblanc and quite possibly my firstborn.  

For those who will be watching the BBC broadcast on Christmas Eve, fear not – there are no spoilers in this review. But suffice it to say that watching a Christmas institution in real life takes away none of the magic (even with the earth-shattering revelation that the solo first verse of Once in Royal is actually pre-recorded).  

Highlights? Everything – a mixture of old favourites, new discoveries and quite possibly the best choir in the world (yes, more bias, I know). Oh, and this paper’s esteemed editor trooping up and down the chapel, wielding a six-foot cross. What more could you ask for? 

At the risk of sounding like a character from a one of Richard Curtis’s less commercially successful ventures, Christmas is a time to slow down and enjoy life’s simpler pleasures. In Cambridge, those pleasures often involve candles, carols, and the knowledge that — for one brief, glittering moment — your essay can wait until tomorrow. So why not ditch the library for a bit and get singing – you might find there are few better ways to spend a winter evening!