Choral Evensong

Choral Evensong runs daily at Gloucester Cathedral, with the public welcome to join in. It's a service that centres on singing texts taken directly from the Bible, with the Bible read and prayers alongside. The music comes from the cathedral's choirs and organ, and you hear it inside the Quire, so you're right in the thick of it rather than watching from a distance.

The choir itself has been around for almost 500 years and is counted among the best in the world. It's made up of twenty boys and twenty girls as choristers, with twelve adults singing alongside them. The choristers receive scholarships to attend The King's School, which was founded around the same time as the cathedral by Henry VIII. There's also a youth choir, started in 1999, for singers aged 13 to 18.

It's worth knowing that the pattern can change. When the choir is away during school holidays or when special services take place, Evening Prayer stands in for Evensong. The cathedral keeps a daily calendar and a music list to track those shifts, so it's a good idea to check them if you're planning a specific visit. The cathedral itself has been a place of Christian worship for more than 1,300 years, ever since the Anglo-Saxon prince Osric founded a religious house there in 678-9 AD.

As for when to turn up, it's on every day of the week: 5:30pm Monday to Friday, 4:30pm on Saturday, and 3:00pm on Sunday. You'll find it in the Quire at Gloucester Cathedral, 12 College Green, Gloucester GL1 2LX.