King's College London Chapel

The Chapel of King’s College London stands on the first floor of the King’s Building in the Strand Campus. Designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott and completed in 1864, it replaced an earlier chapel by Sir Robert Smirke. The building rises above the Great Hall, reached by a grand double staircase from the foyer. Scott used lightweight construction to overcome the difficult site above an existing hall. The chapel follows the form of a classical basilica, with an arcade and upper nave walls that let light enter the space. The chapel is worth the journey for its architectural importance and its place in the college’s history. Smirke’s first chapel, finished in 1831, was soon judged too plain for the college’s standing. Scott’s redesign was approved in 1859 and finished in 1864 at a cost of just over £7,000. The apse holds a mosaic copy of Salviati’s Christ in Majesty, flanked by panels with the college motto Sancte et Sapienter. Painted heads of Doctors of the Church and Anglican Divines appear on the nave arches, added after Scott’s original drawings. Visitors find a lofty nave with an arcade of columns and a semi-dome above the altar. The apse mosaic depicts Christ surrounded by angels, and the walls carry inscriptions and painted figures. The chapel’s windows were altered in the 1930s and after the Second World War, when stained glass was replaced by tinted cathedral glass. The arcade and aisle walls were repainted under Stephen Dykes Bower in 1948. The space remains a place of worship and reflection, linked to the college’s Anglican foundation.