london sightseeing

jamescredmond

spent today in london and called at st.paul's cathedral. An entrance fee I can live with... but £9 pp?? by way of explanation central gov. does not support this iconic building, which I find a liitle wierd. paid anyway and enjoyed it but is it worth asking the question: should we pay to look at our own heritage?and if so, should we meet the same charge as overseas tourists?. my guess is that most visitors to national institutions (historical,.at any rate) tend to come from outside the UK. The sistine chapel levied a charge to foreign nationals for entrance but remained free to the indigenous population. ( I add the caveat that this was some years ago).

LondonDiva

St Paul's is free for services, I've taken out of town relatives there for many services.

I think it's perfectly valid for the church to charge a fee to cover costs, maintance etc, as well as to deter some of the numbers - those 'please give what you can' boxes only ever yield a pittance rather than the true cost of keeping the premises open not even to extend to develoments.

This is a win win, the church makes something of a profit and non worshippers pay

cattie

As a Londoner it has always annoyed me that we are not given either free admission or much reduced rates when visiting any of our national heritage sites.

As for St Paul,I don't believe that a church should be charging an admission fee anyway, but to charge £9 is absolutely extortionate.

Should we be proud that London is now the most expensive city in the world? I don't think so.

Thank goodness our museums and galleries have had free admission again for some years now after the admission charges were abolished, due to dwindling numbers of visitors.

Voyager2002

cattie wrote:

Thank goodness our museums and galleries have had free admission again for some years now after the admission charges were abolished, due to dwindling numbers of visitors.

Not because visitor numbers were dwindling, but because we elected a government that at least believed that everyone should be able to enjoy the great collections that are maintained (mainly) at our expense.

lisyloo

the church makes something of a profit and non worshippers pay

Don't christains believe that everyone should be welcome in the house of the god?

kuohu

I agree that £9 is a lot, but I guess a lot of things in London are over-priced. You can spend about the same money for half an hour on the London Eye, for example. But people spend it, or at least I know I do, since once you're there you have to see the main sights at least once.

That said, maybe after visiting St Pauls you had a stroll across the Millenium Bridge (free) to have a look around the Tate Modern (also largely free)? So it's not all bad.

Back to St Pauls - how would you chose who to let in if it was free for UK residents. Passport? Bank card? I'm not sure, it may not be workable really.

Becles

A nearby attraction/museum gives a dscount to people living in our county or the two neighbouring ones. You just have to take something official with your name and address on, so you can join the "Friends of" group. That seems to work.

They also encourage people to join by Gift Aid so they can claim the tax back, raising more funds to look after the collections.

Voyager2002

kuohu wrote:

Back to St Pauls - how would you chose who to let in if it was free for UK residents. Passport? Bank card? I'm not sure, it may not be workable really.

Isn't life funny? In some countries -- China, Vietnam, India, Thailand -- you pay more if you are a foreigner (for trains, aeroplane rides, entrance to monuments and national parks) and us visitors there are outraged that we are not getting the local price. Yet when it is our country, making foreigners pay more seems fair enough.

Personally, I really hate having to pay to go into cathedrals. But maintaining them is hugely expensive; the government (ie tax-payer) does not contribute but charges VAT on maintenance work; and there are simply not enough church-goers to enable the church to meet these costs from its own resources. I don't know what the solution is, but what I do is go for the services so that I hear the (excellent) choirs singing and can at least control how much I choose to pay (or give). And if I get let off a few hundred years in hell as a result, well, that's a real bargain!

Fifer

Why on earth should the state pay to maintain a church? Surely it should be supported by those who actually want to use it, be it the congregation or tourists and visitors.

wigginsmum

Exactly, Fifer - many modern churches receive tithes (10%) and offerings from the members of the congregation to cover building/admin costs.

black-saturn

Since when has St Pauls been charging? Last time I went it was free.