The Church of England has published its Cathedral Statistics 2018 today along with the following press release.
Record numbers of visitors and worshippers flock to England’s cathedrals
26/11/2019
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, published today, 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.”
Easter growth
Norwich Cathedral witnessed an increase of 65 per cent in Easter and Holy Week worshippers between 2014-18, with nearly 4,500 worshippers attending last year. Dean of Norwich, Jane Hedges, welcomed the trend, saying: “We are delighted that an increasing number of people are celebrating with us the heart of the Christian faith: that Christ is risen!
“Many different factors draw people to the Cathedral, including our engagement with the wider community and activities and events throughout the year, and above all, the quality of worship that we are able to offer.”
Andrew Nunn, Dean of Southwark, which also saw a rise during the same period (56 per cent) cites an annual Lent art installation as helping people to engage in the life of the Cathedral on London’s Southbank, contributing to more than 2,500 attending for Easter and Holy Week worship in 2018.
“We have been striving for openness and inclusion to all the communities in London as well as excellence in liturgy, worship and music,” he said.
“Christmas celebrations have an understandable cross community appeal, but there is something about Holy Week and Easter that appeals to those who are more committed as Christians.”
Another cathedral noticing significant Easter and Holy Week increased was Leicester, where a 136 per cent increase was recorded over the four-year period, with nearly 4,000 attending during the Holy Week and Easter period in 2018.
Dean of Leicester, David Monteith, said there had been no single factor behind the increase, but that the cathedral had improved publicity, developed hospitality, invested in music and built relationships across the city and county.
“We are increasingly trusted to offer worship which is inspirational and inclusive; it is both ‘classic cathedral’ yet imaginative and challenging,” he said.
“We draw from the riches of our faith directing us to God and yet we address the lived experience of our people today.”
“Welcome and belonging”
Other cathedrals have run events specifically to draw in the local community, including a special community evensong event at Southwell Minster, and a ‘Freshers’ Fair’ event in Wells Cathedral, where visitors found out about local volunteer organisations; groups and activities. A local film company created a soundscape for the event to imagine what the city of Wells might be like in the future.
Dean of Wells, Dr John Davies, said the event had inspired various other initiatives, including an abseil which raised over £60,000 for charity.
“The event, Wake up Wells, was a wonderful example of Cathedral and Community overlapping and cooperating,” said the Dean.
“I had more letters of thanks afterwards than after any other event. People felt a real sense of welcome and belonging.”
Many cathedrals participated in the Church of England’s Advent and Christmas campaign promoted by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, #FollowTheStar, which saw nearly 2,000 attending special Lumiere events at Durham and Canterbury Cathedrals. The campaign, which runs again in 2019, encourages more people to attend churches and cathedrals at Christmas time, finding local services and events on achurchnearyou.com.
Next year, 2020, will see new pilgrimage routes opened-up as part of Year Cathedrals; Year of Pilgrimage, a project in collaboration between the British Pilgrimage Trust and the Association of English Cathedrals. The initiative will ensure there is a one-day pilgrimage route for every Church of England Cathedral, in addition to a group of six new trails in the north east.
Adrian Dorber, Dean of Lichfield and Chair of the Association of English Cathedrals, described the latest statistics as pleasing, but warned against complacency.
“We continue to try and find ways that offer spiritual nurture and hospitality to people who have never had much contact with the Church or with organised religion,” he said.
“There is a place for a creative interpretation of big events and anniversaries – whether that’s the Armistice, Easter, Advent or the Moon Landing – and by opening up our great sacred spaces for such encounters, it opens up opportunities for new conversations and new dialogues; it welcomes, it challenges, it engages our communities and allows us to reach new audiences and that says something about cathedrals being a place for all, and a place for fresh encounter.”
Notes to editors
I realise as a Dean that I am an interested party in this discussion but I don’t think that bars me from.comment. For us at Chelmsford the most astonishing figure for December 2018 was that we saw 11,000 more people than the previous December. Ok that’s across a huge range of activities, services and events, but a big deal none the less. It maybe be worth reflecting on this, especially in a “small” cathedral context. We are intentionally low threshold when the national church is increasingly high threshold. We offer – I would claim – a standard of preaching and… Read more »
Congratulations on yoir success, Nicholas. What you are doing does sound really good.
If the Church were more able to open up to ‘The Great Unwashed’ there might be even more visitors – not only to cathedrals but to every parish church in England! The Church is the Body of Christ – The Redeemed – and our buildings, though beautiful, and thank God most of them are; are supplementary. Deo Gratias!
So let’s create a lot more cathedrals in order to reverse the general C of E decline
‘No single factor’ in the 136 per cent increase in visitors at Leicester? Has the Dean forgotten that he reburied Richard III at exactly the time the increase seems to have begun?
Actually I agree with the dean. There are many things that we are doing in Leicester that are attracting people to worship with us and come to visit. Things like an investment in top class music and art installations, dementia friendly worship, youth orientated events, dedicated welcomers and guides and an inclusive ethos that makes sure everyone is welcome. Richard III is only one of many strands in our growth.
The report’s triumphalist tone has an unfortunate effect on me. As a recently retired parish priest for 13 years, and before that as a church musician and liturgist for 40+ years—whose vocation was nurtured by cathedral tradition—I find it difficult to see this as anything other than criticism of “ordinary” parish ministry. In the comments that follow, I use headings that are prominent in the report. Numbers. We’re sometimes told that success should not be defined simply by bums on seats. Yet this report does exactly that. Staffing. Cathedrals ought to be doing well given their staffing. One of the… Read more »
Fr Stanley, I really value your contributions, but there is a positive – outside cathedrals, which doesn’t only minister to the middle class.They may be over-represented, but in my congergtion BAME are also over-represented in respect of the local demography. I worship and am an ex-churchwarden (twice) in a very large 27000+ liberal catholic parish, 40 miles from London. We have a great choir with about 15 children and no recruitent problems. We offer a couple of choral scholarships. Our last scholar is at a music focussed Uni in London and has got a choral scholarship there. We offer catholic… Read more »
Good to hear. I guess such places are more likely to be found in reasonably prosperous areas. I was once Organist in such a place. But I note the dissonance between on the one hand mission experts who tell us that services should be “relevant” and “approachable” and on the other the “success” of cathedral worship which could be said to be neither. I am a supporter of cathedral style worship. I wish parish churches would recover some the traditions they have lost. It occurs to me that many who attend cathedrals must have to drive there, so perhaps when… Read more »
Re Music “Diocesan strategies could be developed (Leeds RC diocese is exemplary)”. Yes indeed. Ely diocese is planning something like this, citing RC Leeds as the exemplar. It hasn’t started yet, but planning is underway and it should begin in 2020, if I recall correctly.
Where can we find out about these strategies?
In relation to Leeds, quoting from their website:
Largest church-based singing programme for young people in the UK, working with over 3500 young singers every week.
Leeds Cathedral, LS2 8BE
dioceseofleedsmusic.org.uk
This is St Annes Catholic Cathedral. As well as the work mentioned above, they offer choral scholarships and tuition in organ and piano. Literature and leaflets are available at the cathedral. For those further afield I guess a telephone call would put you in touch.
I would not agree that the report is triumphalist, it is balanced and grounded – as is typical for the work of the CofE research and statistics unit. Look at the summary and the figures for attendance or look at the figures for fresh expressions. But the press release is a different animal from a different part of Church House.
And I would certainly agree that the Cathedrals ought to be doing better given their resources and their special status……
It’s really unfortunate that, whenever the C of E publishes stats relating to cathedrals, it inevitably draws the predictable carping around cathedral versus parish, with undertones of sniping at musical excellence and general accusations of privilege. What seems to be emerging (and this is evidenced to a large extent by Nick Henshall’s comments above) is that people are drawn to cathedrals, not because they are places of privilege (if indeed they are); but because they offer a measure of liturgical stability that is inviting and transforming, an intelligent and humane account of the Christian faith (not least through preaching), and… Read more »
If that’s a dig at me, Michael, it’s misplaced. I agree with you. The replacement of ritual, liturgy and beauty with patronising and infantilising “entertainment” in the name of “relevance” and “approachability” does not seem to be what the punters want. The trouble is that the provision of ritual, liturgy and beauty requires teamwork, commitment and resources – all of which are in short supply.
No dig aimed at you, Stanley. It was simply an observation of the general thrust of these things – coupled to the need to say that where so many parishes have given up on Anglicanism, cathedrals are doing their level best to do it with intelligence, humanity and imagination. They deserve our thanks, not the sideswipes we so often see. Of course, one of the reasons why parochial clergy can be green-eyed about cathedrals is that many people living in their parishes get into the car on a Sunday morning, drive past their parish church, and worship in their nearest… Read more »
Michael, good. Having retired at the end of November, I’m taking stock and recovering from a mild form of PTSD. I wonder how long before fuel is so expensive that people won’t be able to afford to drive to cathedrals. Might there be a revival of seemly parish church worship? Traditions will have to be rediscovered. Sometimes I wonder what worship has to do with Jesus of Nazareth anyway, for he came, did he not, to abolish religion. Still, if the church were to recover its role as patron of the arts – now that would be the thing. But… Read more »