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Home. Visit. Explore a place rich in history. The Abbey is a place that's touched the lives of kings, queens, statesmen and soldiers, poets, priests, heroes and villains since 960AD. Westminster Abbey has been the coronation church since 1066 and is the resting place of more than 3,000 great Britons. Why visit the Abbey. Play video.
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Explore Westminster Abbey, a Royal church and site of...
- Group Visits
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- Food & Drink
Restaurant opening times. The restaurant is open from 8am –...
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- About
Welcome to Westminster Abbey. Benedictine monks founded...
- St Margaret's Church
St. Margaret’s is a 12th-century church next to Westminster...
- What to See and Do
With the Abbey’s rich history, there are many parts of it...
- The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries
High above the Abbey floor, the Galleries in the beautiful...
- Guided Tours
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an Anglican church in the City of Westminster, London, England. Since 1066, it has been the location of the coronations of 40 English and British monarchs and a burial site for 18 English, Scottish, and British monarchs.
- 32,000 square feet (3,000 m²)
- Church of England
- 960s–970s
2 days ago · Welcome to Westminster Abbey. A royal church offering daily services for all and a World Heritage Site with over a thousand years of history. About the Abbey. Spring Season: Fraternité. Join us for a season of events focusing on the fellowship between the UK and France, celebrating shared stories, cross-channel influence and the unity of nations.
- Overview
- Architectural history
- Coronations, weddings, and burials
- Interesting facts about Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, London church that is the site of coronations and other ceremonies of national significance. It stands just west of the Houses of Parliament in the Greater London borough of Westminster. Situated on the grounds of a former Benedictine monastery, it was refounded as the Collegiate Church of St. Peter in Westminster by Queen Elizab...
Legend relates that Saberht, the first Christian king of the East Saxons, founded a church on a small island in the River Thames, then known as Thorney but later called the west minster (or monastery), and that this church was miraculously consecrated by St. Peter. It is certain that about 785 ce there was a small community of monks on the island and that the monastery was enlarged and remodeled by St. Dunstan of Canterbury about 960. St. Edward the Confessor built a new church on the site, which was consecrated on December 28, 1065. It was of considerable size and cruciform in plan. In 1245 Henry III pulled down the whole of Edward’s church (except the nave) and replaced it with the present abbey church in the pointed Gothic style of the period. The design and plan were strongly influenced by contemporary French cathedral architecture.
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The rebuilding of the Norman-style nave was begun by the late 1300s under the architect Henry Yevele and continued intermittently until Tudor times. The Early English Gothic design of Henry III’s time predominates, however, giving the whole church the appearance of having been built at one time. The chapel of Henry VII (begun c. 1503), in Perpendicular Gothic style, replaced an earlier chapel and is famed for its exquisite fan vaulting. Above the original carved stalls hang the banners of the medieval Order of the Bath.
Since William the Conqueror in 1066, every British sovereign has been crowned in the abbey except Edward V and Edward VIII, neither of whom was crowned. Additionally, Westminster Abbey has a long tradition of royal weddings, beginning with Henry I’s marriage to Matilda of Scotland in 1100. The only other reigning monarch to be wed in the abbey was Richard II, who married Anne of Bohemia in 1382. The abbey was the venue for the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in 2011.
Many kings and queens are buried near the shrine of Edward the Confessor or in Henry VII’s chapel. The last sovereign to be buried in the abbey was George II (died 1760); since then they have been interred at Windsor Castle. The abbey is crowded with the tombs and memorials of famous British subjects, such as Isaac Newton, David Livingstone, and Ernest Rutherford. Part of the south transept is well known as Poets’ Corner and includes the tombs of Geoffrey Chaucer, Ben Jonson (who was buried upright), John Dryden, Robert Browning, and many others. The north transept has many memorials to British statesmen. The grave of the “Unknown Warrior,” whose remains were brought from Flanders (Belgium) in 1920, is in the centre of the nave near the west door.
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•Westminster Abbey is called a “royal peculiar” because it is under the jurisdiction of the British monarch and not the Church of England.
•Thirty royals are buried in the abbey, including 13 kings, 4 queens regnant, and 11 queens consort. In addition, James I’s mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, and his daughter Elizabeth are interred there.
•Geoffrey Chaucer was the first poet to be buried (1400) in what became known as Poets’ Corner. However, he was initially recognized for his service as the clerk of the king’s works. It was not until Edmund Spenser was buried next to him some 200 years later that the idea for Poets’ Corner was formed.
•In a plot worthy of a novel, Charles Dickens was interred at Westminster Abbey against his wishes. He had requested a simple burial in a location close to his country home in Kent. Rochester Cathedral was ultimately chosen, and a grave was dug there. However, in a scheme reportedly instigated by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, the dean of Westminster, the author was buried in Poets’ Corner. Stanley thought Dickens added prestige not only to the abbey but also to himself.
•Poet Lord Byron was refused burial in Westminster Abbey after his death in 1824 because his life was considered to have been too scandalous. However, a memorial stone was finally placed on the floor of the abbey in 1969.
•The abbey is home to the oldest door in Britain. Using dendrochronology, scientists discovered that a wooden door leading to the Chapter House was built in the 1050s.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Our history. As well as being a place of worship, Westminster Abbey has become a treasure house of artefacts. This is also where some of the most significant people in Britain's history are buried or commemorated. More about the Abbey’s history.
