London Guide
Westminster
Political, religious and regal power has emanated from Westminster for almost a millennium. It was Edward the Confessor (1042–66) who first established Westminster as London's royal and ecclesiastical power base, some three miles west of the City of London. The embryonic English parliament used to meet in the abbey and eventually took over the old royal palace of Westminster when Henry VIII moved out to Whitehall.
Until the westward expansion of the City of London in the seventeenth century, Westminster was a more or less separate city. Today, the modern borough encompasses a much wider area than that covered in this chapter, including most of the West End and parts of the very wealthy districts of Mayfair and Belgravia, making its council one of the richest in the country. The monuments and buildings covered in this chapter include some of London's most famous landmarks – Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, plus one of the city's finest permanent art collections, Tate Britain. This area is a well-trodden tourist circuit for the most part, though there are only a few shops or cafés and little commercial life (nearby Soho and Covent Garden are far better areas for this). It's also one of the easiest parts of London to walk round, with all the major sights within a mere half-mile of each other, and linked by one of London's most triumphant – and atypical – avenues.