Canterbury Cathedral Reviews 17

Great place to visit. Especially if you take a tour.

How disappointing to visit the beautiful Cathedral of Canterbury with tacky Christmas market stalls and inappropriate music blaring out in the precinct before entering. The precinct should be a place of calm and peace. A haven amongst all the commercialisation of Christmas.
In the cathedral there is so much to see but one has to pay an extra £5 on top of the already steep £18 entrance fee for a guided tour. There is no option for a fully informative self guided tour, just a map. The signage is very poor and badly lit making it difficult to read. Whoever is in charge of such matters needs to up their game.

We combined a stay in the Canterbury Cathedral Lodge with a 75 minute guided tour of the cathedral. The guide was superb, combining her historical knowledge of this ancient building along with how it lives as a place of pilgrimage and worship today. I don't begrudge a penny of what we paid for the privilege of spending time in a very special place.

£17 is far too much to enter a place of worship, and it is not free for a 17 year old because they need a paying adult.

£17 entry fee is an absolute rip off. Really not worth the money. Plenty of other tourist attractions to see in the area, that won't cost as much and won't have the rude staff this place does. Place was totally underwhelming, dirty and a bit boring compared to other cathedrals i have visited, don't waste your money!

I've lived not far from the cathedral all my life but decided Id finally take a look. Fee is a bit steep but the building and the grounds are rather lovely.

I visited the cathedral on Saturday 11 May 2024 in order to see the "Monastic Life" exhibition which has been running for some time. The nave was closed for services, but this was no problem as I could access the exhibition in the water tower via the Great Cloister and tower garden; sadly the exhibition was a serious disappointment, consisting mainly of four static posters showing cartoon monks and two animated screens. As a long-time student of monks and monasticism I found the experience woefully inadequate, but I was able to take some photos in the cloister, the garden and of the water tower itself which made up for some of my disappointment. This exhibition is certainly not worth seeing and I could have done a better job myself.

Apart from being the actual cathedral being beautiful, historic and all that jazz, the grounds are currently open for FREE and make a lovely walk (March 2024). If you do pay to go inside and have small children, there are usually lots of activities - and some of the outer spaces, like the Cloisters where the monks exercised are less formal. Look for the foot shapes carved into the seats!
But do not use the Cathedral Tea Rooms - unless you want the full-on 'Fawlty Towers' experience. This included, for me, waiting 15 minutes for a single person pot of tea (luke warm) which came, bizarrely, with a huge jug of milk, along with a slice of lemon cake that was so solid on one side that it was completely inedible.
The chap who had been just ahead of me in the queue asked the waitress, 'Have you seen my sausage roll?' to which she replied, shortly, 'No.' and did nothing more. An older member of staff then came into the room, glared at us all and, in a very 'Basil-esque' way, started asking customers to move tables so that they could fit more people in.
Oh, and I'm not the only one. I laughed over this with a friend - and they'd had almost exactly the same experience!

£17 entry fee is too much !

Looks really nice would have liked to look around but couldn't afford £17 each very very disappointing cannot justify the cost

I visit here as much as I can, its such a beautiful place. If your visiting Canterbury it is well worth going in.

I went to a service at the Cathedral this evening, just an ordinary Tuesday evensong, and heard a beautiful choir led by an outstanding choirmaster sing to the accompaniment of a priceless and unique organ played by a gifted musician. I heard the wonderful Dean Robert Willis read from St John with his calm and soothing voice and was surrounded by the soaring stonework and ancient glass of the building which stands to represent the work of man for God. How could this be anything less than a five-star place to visit?

The volunteers are very welcoming and informative. Clergy are still present on site. They're also welcoming if you wish to interact with them, but won't impose if you don't wish to talk. The cathedral itself is beautiful and full of history. Given the age of the building, it's obviously in a constant state of preservation. But don't let that put you off.

Besides being a wonderful place to visit, the volunteers who work there are pleasant and extremely knowledgeable. They went out of their way on our visit yesterday to ensure we got the most out of our time and shared their knowledge which made our visit even more special.

First they steal; then they cheat; now they are guilty of simony
Canterbury cathedral was confiscated from the Catholic church by Henry VIII without compensation. It was maintained by robbing generations of our ancestors through the tithe. A distant relation of mine had his tractor (his livelihood) sequestrated for daring to protest.
Now I try to enter the church as a disabled old man on a Sunday; they demand £10 admission fee, and rudely block my way when I tell them that they have no legal right to do so.