Westminster Abbey

About Westminster Abbey

Gothic abbey church in London, England, UK

Westminster Abbey, formally the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is a great Gothic church in the City of Westminster, London, immediately west of the Palace of Westminster (the Houses of Parliament). It is the religious heart of the British monarchy: since 1066 it has seen the coronations of 40 English and British monarchs, most recently King Charles III in 2023, the burials of 18 of them, and at least 16 royal weddings since 1100, including that of Prince William and Catherine in 2011. A Benedictine abbey stood here by the mid-10th century, and King Edward the Confessor built the first great church in the 1040s. Henry III began the present church in 1245 in a Gothic style inspired by 13th-century France and England, and the Henry VII Chapel with its hanging fan vault was added at the east end in the early 16th century; the antiquarian John Leland called it 'the wonder of the world'. The monastery was dissolved in 1559 and Elizabeth I made the church a royal peculiar answering directly to the sovereign. Together with the Palace of Westminster and St Margaret's Church it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. Inside are the tombs and memorials of more than 3,000 people, among them Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, Poets' Corner with Chaucer and Dickens, the Grave of the Unknown Warrior and the Coronation Chair of about 1300. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries high above the nave display the abbey's treasures and coronation history. For Muslim visitors it is a window on Britain's political history and on Gothic architecture at its finest.

Where:

London, United Kingdom