Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey is the most important Church in the United Kingdom.

This is where coronations, marriages and burials of British monarchs have taken place since 1066 and where William the Conqueror was crowned.
The latest one was the coronation of Queen Elisabeth II in 1953.

Westminster Abbey was initiated as a monastry in the 10th Century when Saint Dunstan brought a group of benedict monks to the area of Westminster.

In the period between the 10th Century and the 20th Century many different architectural details were added to the church.

Today it is still a church dedicated to regular worship and to the celebration of great events in the life of the nation.

Coronation of Queen Victoria
19 July 1821

In the 1040s King Edward , last of the Anglo-Saxon kings, established his royal palace by the banks of the river Thames.
Close by was a small Benedictine monastery founded under the patronage of King Edgar and St Dunstan around 960 AD.
This monastery Edward chose to re-endow and greatly enlarge, building a large stone church in honour of St Peter the Apostle.
This church became known as the “west minster” to distinguish it from St Paul’s Cathedral in the City of London.

In 1220, inspired by the Gothic style of Amiens and Reims, Henry III, began to rebuild the church, starting with the Lady Chapel to provide a noble shrine for Edward the Confessor who had been canonised in 1163.

When Henry VII constructed his chapel (1503-1519), Perpendicular Gothic was the fashionable ecclesiastical style.

From 1540 to 1550, the building became the cathedral for the new diocese of Westminster.
When Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540, the abbey's treasures were confiscated and it's property forfeited but the buildings were not destroyed.
When Mary died , Elisabeth I became Queen, she granted a charter establishing the Collegiate Church of St. Peter, with a royally appointed dean and chapter of twelve prebendaries (canons), and also the College of St. Peter, generally known as Westminster School, which replaced the monastic school.

Original tiles

on the Chapter House floor


All of the Tudor monarchs except Henry VIII are buried in the Abbey.

Henry VII shares a tomb with his wife Elisabeth of York.
His mother Margaret Beaufort is also buried nearby.

Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I are also interred there, with Mary and Elizabeth sharing a fine monument constructed by James VI/I.

After James became king, he had his mother Mary Queen of Scots re-interred in a splendid tomb at the Abbey next to his paternal grandmother Margaret, Countess of Lennox.

The west entrance to the abbey didn't get its tall white towers until the18th century, when they were added by the architect Sir Christopher Wren.

Elisabeth I's tomb