Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey's present Gothic structure was begun in 1245 under Henry III, replacing an earlier Norman church built by Edward the Confessor, whose shrine remains at the heart of the building. Every English and British coronation since William the Conqueror in 1066 has taken place here, most recently the coronation of King Charles III in 2023, and the abbey holds the tombs of seventeen monarchs alongside Poets' Corner, where writers including Chaucer, Dickens, and Hardy are commemorated. The abbey's soaring nave, the highest Gothic vault in England, and its Henry VII Lady Chapel, with its intricate fan-vaulted ceiling completed in 1516, represent High and Perpendicular Gothic architecture at their most elaborate. Curatorially the abbey functions as both an active place of worship and a national mausoleum, with visitor routes weaving between royal tombs, memorials to statesmen and scientists including Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin, and the Coronation Chair, in continuous use since 1308. As a working church, the abbey undergoes rolling stone conservation, and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries, opened in 2018 in the medieval triforium, added a new viewing level above the nave without altering the historic fabric below.