King's College and Chapel

King's College is one of the most famous sights in Cambridge.

It was founded by King Henry VI in 1441 and then greatly expanded, as he demolished a large swathe of the town to make room for it.

The chapel itself took around 70 years to build, and saw a succession of English kings and considerable turbulence during its construction.

King Henry VI was deposed, restored, and then deposed again.

The Wars of the Roses ran for more than 30 years between the Yorks and the Lancasters - resolved by the defeat of Richard III and Henry VII's marriage to Elizabeth of York - and the advent of the Tudor dynasty.

The chapel is now considered one of the finest surviving examples of Perpendicular Gothic, one of the last and most English phases of medieval architecture.

Its ceiling is the largest fan vault in the world, its ribs opening overhead into ethereal, lacy patterns.

It is also said to have some of the most beautiful stained glass in the world.

The chapel was a monument to the Tudor dynasty, and Tudor symbols can still be seen peppered throughout it.

The most famous is the Tudor rose - which combines the white rose of the House of York (inner petals) and the red rose of the House of Lancaster (outer petals).

The dragon and the greyhound were King Henry VII's personal emblems and the fleurs de lys represented his dominion over French lands.

The portcullis was the personal badge of Margaret Beaufort, the mother of King Henry VII and grandmother of Henry VIII.

The wooden screen was put up by Henry VIII to celebrate his marriage to Anne Boleyn.

You can still see the H and the A carved into the woodwork, which is extremely rare, as most traces of her were destroyed after her execution.

Fun fact : the chapel came through the Civil War of the 1640s almost untouched - which is not what happened to most English churches.

Parliamentarian troops were stationed in Cambridge and used the building as a training ground, and it was said that an explosion blew out the windows, but the iconography survived.

Some sources suggest Oliver Cromwell, who had studied at Cambridge himself, ordered that it be protected.

However the soldiers did leave their mark : their graffiti can still be seen on the north and south walls near the altar.

Today, the chapel is also known for its choir, which sings services on most days in term time, and is famously recorded and broadcast on the BBC on Christmas Eve.

Famous alumni include mathematician Alan Turing, economist John Maynard Keynes and writers E. M. Forster, Salman Rushdie and Zadie Smith.