General Information

The splendid, large and predominantly Gothic church located to the west of the Palace of Westminster has been a traditional place of coronation and the burial site for most British monarchs. Originally founded in 1052, it was constructed in its present form in 1245 and until the 19th century it was the third most important seat of learning in England.

Additional Information

Being a place with very rich and long history, Westminister Abbey is now one of major tourist attractions of London. In the 11th-century, vaulted undercroft beneath the former monks’ dormitory there is the Westminister Abbey Museum, which exhibits the collection of royal and other funeral effigies (such as the funeral saddle, helm and shield of Henry V), together with other treasures, including some panels of medieval glass, 12th-century sculpture fragments, Mary II’s coronation chair and replicas of the coronation regalia, as well as historic effigies of several monarchs.

History: Highlights

Edward the Confessor began building the abbey between 1042 and 1052; it was consecrated in 1065 and completed in 1090. It was constructed in the present form in 1245 by Henry III. Since the very beginning it has been a coronation, burial and wedding place of British monarchs and its monks and abbots used to be prominent figures.

History: Explained

Between 1042 and 1052, King Edward the Confessor began rebuilding St Peter’s Abbey in order to prepare a royal burial church for himself. It was the first church in England built in the Norman Romanesque style. It was not completed until about 1090, but was consecrated already on 28 December 1065, only a week before the Confessor’s death. The following day he was laid to rest in the church and nine years later his wife Edith was buried alongside him. His successor, Harold II, was probably crowned in the Abbey, although the first documented coronation was that of William the Conqueror later the same year. The construction of the present church was begun in 1245 by Henry III, who had selected the site for his burial. Abbots and monks of Westminster, living in close proximity to the royal Palace of Westminster, which was the seat of government from the later 12th century, became a powerful force in the centuries after the Norman Conquest: the abbot was often employed for royal service and in due course took his place in the House of Lords as of right. The proximity of the Palace of Westminster, however, did not extend to providing monks or abbots with high royal connections; in social origin the Benedictines of Westminster were as modest as most of the order. In 1535, during Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Abbey’s annual income of £2400–2800 (£980,000 to £1,140,000 as of 2012) was second in wealth only to Glastonbury Abbey. Henry VIII assumed direct royal control in 1539 and granted the Abbey the status of a cathedral by charter in 1540, simultaneously issuing letters patent and establishing the Diocese of Westminster. By granting the Abbey the cathedral status, Henry VIII gained an excuse to spare it from the destruction or dissolution which he inflicted on most English abbeys during this period. Westminster was a cathedral only until 1550. The Abbey was restored to the Benedictines under the Catholic Mary I of England, but they were ejected under Elizabeth I in 1559. In 1579, Elizabeth re-established Westminster as a ‘Royal Peculiar’ – a church responsible directly to the Sovereign, rather than to a diocesan bishop – and made it the Collegiate Church of St Peter (that is, a church with an attached chapter of canons, headed by a dean).
Until the 19th century, Westminster was the third most important seat of learning in England, after Oxford and Cambridge. It was there that the first third of the King James Bible Old Testament and the second half of the New Testament were translated. The New English Bible was also put together there in the 20th century. Westminster suffered minor damage during the Blitz on 15 November 1940. On 6 September 1997 the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales was held there. On 17 September 2010 Pope Benedict XVI became the first pope to set foot in the Westminster Abbey.

Architecture: Highlights

The design of the Westminister Abbey was inspired by the then new Gothic cathedrals at Reims, Amiens and Chartres, borrowing the ideas of an apse with radiating chapels and using the characteristic Gothic features, such as pointed arches, ribbed vaulting, rose windows and flying buttresses.

Architecture: Explained

Although the design was based on the continental system of geometrical proportion, it includes some typically English features, namely single rather than double aisles and a long nave with wide projecting transepts. The Abbey has the highest Gothic vault in England (almost 31 metres) and it was made to seem even higher by narrowing the aisles. The Englishness is also evident in the elaborate mouldings of the main arches, the lavish use of polished Purbeck marble columns and the general sculptural decoration.
The great addition to the Abbey was the construction of a splendid new Lady Chapel by Henry VII between 1503 and 1519 to replace the 13th-century chapel. The perpendicular architecture there is in total contrast to the rest of the Abbey. No documents for this building have been found, but it is thought that the architects were Robert Janyns and William Vertue. Some consider it as one of the most perfect buildings ever erected in England. Henry VII spent lavish sums on the decoration. The most important part of the chapel is its delicately carved fan vaulted roof, with hanging pendants. These are constructed on half-concealed transverse arches.
The Abbey’s two western towers were built between 1722 and 1745 by Nicholas Hawksmoor. They were constructed from Portland stone to an early example of a Gothic Revival design. Purbeck marble was used for the walls and the floors of Westminster Abbey, even though the various tombstones are made of different types of marble. Further rebuilding and restoration was done in the 19th century under Sir George Gilbert Scott. A narthex (a portico or entrance hall) for the western front was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in the mid-20th century, but it was not executed.

Interesting Facts

Since 1100, there have been at least 16 royal weddings at Westminster Abbey. Only two were weddings of reigning monarchs, and there were none at all for more than five centuries between 1382 and 1919.

King Edward’s Chair, the throne on which English and British sovereigns have been seated at the moment of coronation, is housed within the Abbey and has been used at every coronation since 1308.