Trifter

Westminster Abbey lies at the hub and the heart of Great Britain, her Empire and Commonwealth. The English and latterly the British have gathered for a millennium to celebrate, mourn and give thanks within its precincts. Sovereigns are crowned and have been buried there. Royal weddings and funerals are staged there. The nation’s great and good are buried the Abbey. Westminster houses the tomb of Britain’s Unknown warrior.

It represents all that is best in English architecture from the 13th to the 16th Centuries. However Westminster is still a living church with daily services for the ordinary congregation of the borough.

Westminster Abbey began life when a group of Benedictine monks established a monastery on the bank of the Thames in 960AD. King Edward (the Confessor) 1042-66 began building the abbey in about 1050. It was completed and the Norman style church was consecrated on December 28, 1065.

England suffered terribly over the next year and a new regime was founded when William the Conqueror (1066-87) was crowned on Christmas Day, the first coronation in the new abbey.

A major event in 1161 was the canonisation of King Edward as saint and confessors.

Henry III began building the present Gothic style church in 1245 with the West Towers finally being completed in 1745. The abbey is often referred to as the House of Kings as it is the final resting place for many English monarchs, including Edward I (Longshanks or the Hammer of the Scots), Henry III and Henry V. Henry VII, who built the abbey’s magnificent Lady Chapel between 1503 and 1519, is also buried in the abbey.

The Tomb of Mary, Queen of Scots and the joint vault shared by Mary I (Bloody Mary) and her half-sister, Elizabeth I (Good Queen Bess) are indicative of the bloodstained and turbulent years during the Tudor Period.

Edward I brought the Stone of Destiny, on which all Scottish kings had been crowned, from Scone to the abbey in 1300. The Coronation Chair, on which all English and British monarchs have been crowned was constructed to enclose the Stone, which has since been returned to Scotland.

Geoffrey Chaucer was buried in the abbey for his role as a royal servant, not as a poet. However his grave became the nucleus of Poet’s Corner with William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, the Bronte Sisters, Charles Dickens,  Rudyard Kipling and many others lying around him.

The abbey also houses the tombs of our great scientists and musicians from Newton to Darwin and Purcell to Handel.

An unidentified body of a soldier from the Western Front was brought into the abbey and entombed as the Unknown warrior in 1930.

Henry VIII dissolved the monastery in 1540 and his daughter, Elizabeth I was to establish it as a Collegiate Church twenty years later.

Westminster Abbey is central to the religious, ceremonial and ritual life of the nation with worship being offered everyday.

One of the excellent pieces of stained glass in the abbey is the memorial window to those two great playwrights, Christopher Marlow, 1564-93 and Oscar Wilde, 1854 to 1900.

Most of the Abbey and its environs are accessible to people with restricted mobility. However entrance to some of the smaller chapels can be difficult for people using wheelchairs, due to their medieval origins.

Photography and filming is prohibited throughout the abbey.

Westminster Abbey is from 0:30 to 15:45 on Mondays to Fridays with later opening of 19:00 in summer and 18:00 in winter on Wednesdays and 09:30 to 13:45 on Saturdays. The abbey is only open for services on Sundays.

The Abbey Museum and Chapter House is open from 10:30 to 16:00 each day, St Margaret’s Church opens from 09:30 tp 15:45 on Mondays to Fridays, 09:30 to 13:45 on Saturdays and 14:00 to 17:00 on Sundays. Visitors can view the College Garden on Tuesdays to Thursdays from 10:00 to 18:00 in summer and 10:00 to 16:00 in winter.

More information on services can be obtained from 02 7222 5152 and the there is an general information desk on 020 7654 4900.