Filming locations in Ely

Ely is the kind of place you can read in a single afternoon, and one very tall reason draws set-jetters here. The medieval cathedral that locals nickname the Ship of the Fens stands in for Westminster Abbey in The Crown, the soaring stand-in for the coronation and the great royal weddings the series restages. You see it long before you arrive, floating above the flat Cambridgeshire fen country like something that should not be possible.

The reward is the inside. Where the camera framed an abbey full of pageantry, you get to walk the same vast nave and look straight up into the famous octagon, the lantern tower that has no real architectural equal in England. Pay the admission, take the tower tour if it is running, and climb the octagon or the west tower for a view that runs for miles across the Fens. Time your visit around services, which can close parts of the building.

Everything that makes Ely worth the trip sits within a few minutes of the cathedral, so there is no need for a car or a plan. The little city wraps around the church, and Oliver Cromwell's former house, now a small museum, is its other stop. An hour or two covers the lot at an unhurried pace.

Use Cambridge as your base and treat Ely as a half-day excursion. The train takes about fifteen minutes from there, and the run from London is straightforward too. Go in the morning for the softest light on the stone and the quietest galleries, then linger over lunch before the trip back.