London Guide
Westminster
Westminster Abbey
Opening time: Mon– Fri 9.30am–3.45pm, Wed until 6pm, Sat 9.30am–1.45pm
Price: £10
This single building embodies much of the history of England: it has been the venue for all the coronations since the time of William the Conqueror, and the site of more or less every royal burial for some five hundred years between the reigns of Henry III and George II. Scores of the nation's most famous citizens are honoured here, too (though many of the stones commemorate people buried elsewhere), and the interior is crammed with hundreds of monuments, reliefs and statues.
The abbey's most dazzling architectural set piece is the Lady Chapel, added by Henry VII in 1503 as his future resting place. With its intricately carved vaulting and fan-shaped gilded pendants, the chapel represents the final spectacular gasp of the English Perpendicular style. The public are no longer admitted to the Shrine of Edward the Confessor, the sacred heart of the building (except on a guided verger tour; £4) though you do get to inspect Edward I's Coronation Chair, a decrepit oak throne dating from around 1300 and still used for coronations.
Nowadays, the abbey's royal tombs are upstaged by Poets' Corner, in the south transept. The first occupant, Geoffrey Chaucer, was buried here not because he was a poet but because he lived nearby. By the eighteenth century, however, this zone had become an artistic pantheon, and since then has been filled with tributes to all shades of talent. From the south transept, you can view the central sanctuary, site of the coronations, and the wonderful Cosmati floor mosaic, constructed in the thirteenth century by Italian craftsmen, and often covered by a carpet to protect it.
Doors in the south choir aisle lead to the Great Cloisters (daily 8am–6pm; free), at the eastern end of which lies the octagonal Chapter House (daily 10.30am–4pm; free), where the House of Commons met from 1257. The thirteenth-century decorative paving tiles and apocalyptic wall-paintings have survived intact. Visitors now exit the abbey via the nave whose most famous monument is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, set into the floor by the west door.