120,000 People Land on the Moon

Or at least near the moon. In Rochester Cathedral.

Visitor numbers are out of this world for Rochester Cathedral’s Museum of the Moon, a touring artwork by UK artist Luke Jerram which finished its three-week run last night.

Over 120,000 people saw the Moon and its accompanying programme of lunar inspired events, which included a concert by the Pink Floyd Tribute band, Just Floyd, a lunar inspired organ recital , a moon-lit Valentine’s evening and the first Cathedral At Night event which saw a talk by environmentalist and theologian, author, Dr Ruth Valerio followed by sung prayer under the moon.

To compare, there were just under 10,000 visitors to the Cathedral during the same three-week period in 2019. And exit surveys show that 21% of visitors had never visited the Cathedral before.

The bumper visitor numbers come after a record-breaking summer for visitor engagement at Church of England cathedrals – with Rochester leading the way with its Adventure Golf and the Knife Angel sculpture both events which contributed to a huge hike in visitor numbers last year with 283,000. The number of worshippers at services during Advent and Christmas also rose by 16%.

Dean of Rochester, The Very Rev’d Philip Hesketh said a huge thank you to all the volunteers who made the three week event so successful.

‘Rochester Cathedral is a generous space proclaiming the wideness in God’s love. I’m delighted that increasing numbers of people are discovering that the Cathedral’s embrace includes them’.

Find out more on the Rochester Cathedral website here.

Just this week Durham Cathedral and Bristol Cathedral have both announced they will be hosting the Museum of the Moon art installation later this summer.

Stay tuned because we’ll be posting more information about their events as and when we hear.