Wheelchair access very much compromised
2.5
2.5
Date of visit: August 2025
I am a disabled person. I have experience of challenges around: accessing toilets and moving around.
I use or have experience of: disabled toilet
Overall Rating
Average
There is step-free access to much of the cathedral, but many disappointments and certain areas are totally inaccessible to wheelchair users.
Disabled Access In and Around
Poor
So many disappointments - the cathedral could be made fully wheelchair accessible but the will to do so is simply not there. There is a modern lift to the quire. The eastern end of the cathedral is totally inaccessible to wheelchair users. To get from the cloisters to the nave, there is an antiquated and ramshackle platform lift, which is parked some distance from the stairs it is supposed to serve, and if you want to use it you have to go all the way back to the ticket office outside the cathedral precincts to request someone to operate it; or you have to visit the security office, and there are no clues as to where the security office is. There is no phone number on the lift to spare you these tedious detours. A member of cathedral staff told us that it would take TWENTY MINUTES for someone to come and operate the lift. We gave up and took an enormous detour around the outside of two-thirds of the entire cathedral to get to the step-free entrance to the nave at the western end. We were also told that there had been plans to install a ramp to replace the ramshackle and almost unusable platform lift, but that this had been blocked by English Heritage, because underneath the 18th century paving in the cloister some medieval graves had been discovered. The cathedral is there for the living, not for the dead, but it has been decided that the dead take priority over dignified access to the nave by the living. I was scandalised to learn of this.
Parking & Transport
Excellent
Canterbury West station is 0.6 miles from the cathedral and is fully step-free and has lovely helpful staff, including Liam on the ticket barrier and John on the London-bound platform - top marks to these two delightfully friendly chaps for making our arrival and departure so smooth and so cheerful.
Accessible Toilets
0I didn't find any accessible toilets. If I find some on a subsequent visit, I will update this section of the review.
Staff
Average
The staff we met were friendly and helpful. They made sympathetic noises about the failure to provide full, effective and dignified step-free access to all areas of the cathedral, but they also made excuses and seemed apathetic and took a fatalistic line, as if these problems were just too big to solve and we would just have to accept them. I do not accept them. It is not difficult to make such a building fully accessible.
Additional Information
The paving in the cloister is completely hideous for a wheelchair user. It's rough and uneven. The tarmac path leading to the step-free entrance to the nave at the north-west corner of the cathedral is DANGEROUS because it has some extremely large bumps - I nearly fell out of my powerchair. This is horrendously negligent and seems to echo the general attitude of the cathedral authorities to decent access for wheelchair users.
