Editor Pick
Westminster Abbey - Commemorations Corners
- January 24, 2005
- Rated 5 of 5 by
aliante1981 from Dubna, Russia
Many prominent public figures are commemorated within the Westminster Abbey, so this is intended as a brief guide on the subject matter, especially interesting to any fan of English history and art.
Statesmen, mostly commemorated at the Statesmen’s Aisle and in the monarchs’ burials:
- Every British monarch since Henry III (died in 1272) till George II (died in 1760). They are buried in the chapels of Henry VII and the Chapel of St. Edward the Confessor;
- Gladstone, the prime minister who is also buried there, and
- Disraeli, the prime minister who is not;
- Sir Robert Peel, the Home Office head and the creator of the Metropolitan Police Force;
- A stone remembering Sir Winston Churchill;
Men of Literature and Art, whose monuments can be found in the Poets’ Corner:
- Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of Canterbury tales, with whom the tradition started of the finest writers being commemorated and often buried in the Westminster Abbey. Chaucer himself is buried here.
- William Shakespeare, who has a large memorial dedicated to him, but who was not actually laid to rest inside the Abbey’s walls.
- Lord George Gordon Byron, who was not buried here, along with other prominent figures commemorated, like Tennyson, William Blake, TS Eliot.
- There are also memorials to Handel, Edmund Spencer, Robert Browning, the Oxford professor and creator of Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling, Ben Jonson (who was buried upright), John Dryden, and Henry James.
Scientific Luminaries, buried or commemorated in what became known as the Scientists’ Corner:
- Sir Isaac Newton, recently proclaimed the greatest Briton to have ever lived;
- Charles Darwin, to whom through a special Parliamentary petition has been granted the burial in the Westminster Abbey;
- David Livingstone, whose body – although he died deep within Africa – was embalmed and transferred to England to be buried in the Abbey;
- Lord Stanhope, who qualified on two scores, for being a politician and an experimental scientist;
- Michael Faraday, who is only commemorated in the Abbey and buried in Highgate Cemetery in London;
- Lord Kelvin, a Nobel Prize Laureate buried in the Westminster Abbey;
- Ernest Rutherford, another of the four Nobel Laureates buried in the Abbey. Although he died in Cambridge, he was also granted burial here.
From journal London for Tourists
Editor Pick
Westminster Abbey
- January 24, 2005
- Rated 5 of 5 by
aliante1981 from Dubna, Russia
Situated next to the Houses of Parliament on the site of a former Benedictine monastery, the Westminster Abbey has for ages been a site for coronations and other royal events of importance. And every British monarch, starting with William the Conqueror and with the sole exceptions of Edward V and Edward VIII, were crowned inside its walls.
As is the case with any important monument, Westminster Abbey is surrounded with legends. In particular, it is said that a church once stood there (built by Saberht, the first openly Christian king of the East Saxon tribes) that was consecrated by St. Peter through a miracle. The place was then called Thorney – a small island in the middle of the river Thames – but became known as West Monastery, or minister. It has been re-founded and re-constructed several times, until it had been formally proclaimed as the Collegiate Church of St. Peter in Westminster in 1560.
Architecturally, the Abbey is predominantly a Gothic building, although it was built in stages:
- The traces and beginnings of the early English Gothic are still to be found in the stones, put there in the times of Edward the Confessor.
- During the reign of King Henry III, ite was the peak of typical early English Gothic and thus it became the predominant architectural feature of the Abbey, notwithstanding the fact that the king had failed to finish the work, and thus space was found for later styles and generations.
- 1338 was the year when the French Gothic style penetrated the builders’ plans with the construction of the imposing nave.
- One of the most magnificent parts - the Chapel of Henry VII - was added even later in 1519 and follows in a perpendicular Gothic style.
You should allow at least a couple of hours if you want to get well-acquainted with Westminster Abbey both on the inside and on the outside, read the inscriptions, take some inspiring photos, etc. The Abbey has a rather complex system of opening hours, the most important being these:
- The Westminster Abbey is open from 9am till 4:45pm each weekday and closes at 2:45 on Saturdays. Tickets are sold up to 1 hour before closing time and are likely to cost you up to $15, depending on which visitor category you fit into.
- Chapter House is open from 9:30am till 5:30pm in the high tourist season but closes at 4pm in other months.
- Pyx Chamber and the Undercroft Museum are open daily starting at 10am and closing at 4:30pm. Entrance costs about $7 to $8 with Chapter House or just a couple if you are also visiting the Abbey itself.
- The College Gardens can be visited from Tuesday to Thursday starting at 10am as well, but closing at 6 pm during high season (otherwise, it’s 4pm). The gardens are free to see.
- The Cloisters are open from 8am till 6pm daily, and admission there is free of charge.
From journal London for Tourists