I had a revelation in Wells, where I was speaking at the Festival of Literature—Wells Cathedral must be the finest, most beautiful example of Gothic architecture in England. I spent hours exploring it. The curiously delicate immensity of the architecture, the light within it, and the general air of tranquillity felt distinctly spiritual, not in an overtly Christian way, but simply an intangible sense of “something else”. It probably helped that a choir (the wonderful Southern Voices) was performing Henryk Górecki’s soaring Totus Tuus as I entered.
And then I noticed the emptiness. I was one of a handful of visitors on a Friday afternoon. The cathedral used to be free to visit, but earlier this year introduced an admission charge, £14, to help fund the cathedral’s £5,600 daily running cost. Like all English cathedrals, Wells receives no regular funding from either the government or (extraordinarily) the Church of England. I suspect this helped explain the tranquillity.
I don’t mind paying myself, and entry is still free for services. But should we resist entry fees as a matter of principle? At present, ten out of 42 cathedrals charge for entry, and others feel the pressure to do so. Westminster Abbey—a “Royal Peculiar” responsible direct to the monarch—charges £30, Canterbury £17 (but that gets you entry for a year). At Durham they have a nice compromise, which is to “encourage” a donation of £5 (but reach an average of just less than £2).
I find it strange that in the UK we are doggedly in favour of free entry for museums (and pay tens of millions on taxes to subsidise it) but not our cathedrals. In Europe the reverse is generally true. In fact, the British have long had an ambiguous relationship with their great places of worship. It goes back to the Reformation, when the link between seeing and believing was severed, breaking the magic spell our cathedrals once held over us. Later, after the Civil War, there was even a plan to demolish them, including Canterbury.
And then I noticed the emptiness. I was one of a handful of visitors on a Friday afternoon
But with a little imagination cathedrals could serve just as useful a purpose for the health of the nation as our museums, including—as I discovered—for people of all faiths and none. Of course, the question is where would the money come from, if not from tourists? It is hard to argue that important London churches such as Westminster Abbey (which runs a healthy surplus—ripe for redistribution to poorer cathedrals?) should always be free to enter. Canterbury’s admission fees raise £3.9m a year, though a reliance on visitors for income has left it vulnerable to events like Covid-19 and Brexit.
There is a wider cost of admission fees, however, because they have a profound effect on a cathedral’s position within its community. Chester Cathedral abolished its £6 fee after visitor numbers plummeted from 700,000 a year to 60,000. If the Church of England wants to halt the decline in congregations, and if the government wants to regenerate our cities, should they not together help make cathedrals more accessible, not less?
Retailers have a phrase, “threshold resistance”, which describes how the smallest thing can stop people entering a shop. Having to press a buzzer to open a door is a classic example. Having to pay to open a door is like a giant ‘no entry’ sign. As I was pondering all this in Wells, a prayer written by a former Bishop of Bath and Wells, Thomas Ken, was read over the cathedral’s public address system: “O God, make the door of this house wide enough to receive all who need human love and fellowship... make its threshold smooth enough to be no stumbling-block.” Amen to that.