Cathedral attendance is booming in the UK
29th November 2019
PARISH church congregations are dwindling in numbers but Britain’s cathedrals are bucking the trend, registering record attendance during Christian festivals, according to a new report.
England’s cathedrals have witnessed their highest Easter congregation numbers in recent years, while visitor numbers increased by a million on the previous year, statistics published today show.
In the report, Cathedrals reported nearly ten million visitors in 2018, an increase of over 10 per cent on the previous year. There were additionally over a million visitors to Westminster Abbey.
The major Christian festivals remain at the heart of congregational growth, with 58,000 people attending a cathedral at Easter and 95,000 during Holy Week – the highest numbers recorded for a decade, with Easter attendance up nearly 10,000 since 2008.
Meanwhile numbers at Christmas and Advent services rose five per cent on the previous year to reach 750,000 in 2018. There were 133,000 people worshipping in cathedrals on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day – second only to the previous year’s record high.
Cathedrals reported a total of 37,000 people worshipping each week in the year 2018, marking an increase of around 14 per cent over the past ten years. Around one in five cathedral worshippers was under the age of 16, also an increase on the previous year.
Attendance at midweek services, including choral evensong, grew 34 per cent in the ten years to 2018, with nearly 19,000 attending each week. More people attended midweek services than on Sunday for only the second time since records began.
Music in Cathedrals continues to flourish with 2,000 full-time choristers and 1,800 voluntary choir members.
Cathedrals also welcomed the highest ever number of children and young people for educational events. In 2018, 340,000 young people from nursery through to 18+ attended events at cathedrals and at Westminster abbey.
Third Estates Commissioner, Dr Eve Poole, who leads the Church of England’s Cathedrals Support Group, said: “We are proud that our cathedrals are a precious resource not only for the church but for the nation as well.
“We know from countless anecdotes that many who visit as tourists encounter something deeper, and cathedrals have been imaginative in creating more opportunities for people from all walks of life to cross their thresholds.
“The story behind these encouraging figures is of cherished buildings led by armies of dedicated staff and volunteers, who each year tell afresh in words, worship, music and light, the stories enshrined in these stones, which are the stories of our nation too.”
Cathedrals continued to play a key civic role, with Remembrance services drawing in additional numbers for the centenary of the First World War Armistice.
In Spring 2018 over 196,000 people visited Hereford for Cathedral to see Poppies: Weeping Window, an exhibition by artist Paul Cummins and designer Tom Piper featuring poppies previously seen at the Tower of London.
Dean of Hereford, Michael Tavinor, described the event as being of great significance.
“The reactions of the many thousands, young and old, were as varied as the locations they travelled from, but a common experience seems to be one of remembrance, thanksgiving, regret and beauty,” he said.
Elsewhere, Peterborough Cathedral welcomed over 170,000 visitors in the space of three months following the arrival of Tim Peake’s Soyuz space capsule.
Dean of Peterborough, Chris Dalliston, said the Soyuz spacecraft had “not only attracted large numbers of visitors, but also prompted questions about the relationship between science and faith and humanity’s place in the universe.”
