Ascension Day Rooftop Singing

Where:	Selected churches countrywide (see Helpful Hints)
When:	Ascension Day
Time:	Early morning (usually)

Ascension Day is an important landmark in the Christian calendar, commemorating the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven. It takes place on the 40th day after Easter and is always a Thursday, though the date varies as Easter is a moveable feast. It used to be common all over the country for choristers to climb up church towers and onto church roofs to sing early on Ascension Day morning and while in many cases this has died out, sometimes for safety reasons, there are still quite a number of cathedrals and major parish churches in which it still occurs. The times vary a little though it’s mostly around 6.30-7.30am and you can usually expect singing to last around 1/4 of an hour though again this will vary from one location to another. One of the best known is St John’s College, Cambridge, and theirs happens at 12 noon (see separate article). At Gloucester the service in the Cathedral lasts around an hour, with the choristers ascending the Tower just before 8 am and the congregation processing outside to watch whilst singing the Ascension Day hymn.

Helpful Hints

In 2025 Ascension Day will be on Thursday 29th May.

As there are quite a number of venues on the list, I’d advise double-checking before you turn up, just in case, because I won’t get a chance to do all of them every year! The photos are from Gloucester 2018.

So far I’ve found that the following churches are still celebrating Ascension Day in this way:

Canterbury Cathedral (7.30 am) https://www.canterbury-cathedral.org/

Gloucester Cathedral (7am) http://www.gloucestercathedral.org.uk

Southwell Minster (7.30am) http://www.southwellminster.org

St Mary’s Nottingham (7.30am) http://www.nottinghamchurches.org

Great St Mary’s Cambridge (7.45am) http://www.gsm.cam.ac.uk

St John’s College Cambridge (12 noon) http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk

Exeter College, Oxford (early morning but not yet sure what time)http://www.exeter.ox.ac.uk

Holy Trinity Church,Skipton (7.30am) http://www.holytrinityskipton.org.uk

Lichfield Cathedral (7.15am) http://www.lichfield-cathedral.org

Southwark Cathedral (7.30am) http://cathedral.southwark.anglican.org

St Michael Cornhill, London (after 7pm Eucharist) http://www.st-michaels.org.uk