Thorney Island. It was completed in 1065 and stood surrounded by the many

ancillary buildings needed by the community of Benedictine monks who

passed their lives of prayer here. Edward’s death near the time of his

Abbey’s consecration made it natural for his burial place to be by the

High Altar.

Only 200 years later, the Norman east end of the Abbey was demolished

and rebuilt on the orders of Henry III, who had a great devotion to Edward

the Confessor and wanted to honour him. The central focus of the new Abbey

was a magnificent shrine to house St Edward’s body ; the remains of this

shrine, dismantled at the Reformation but later reerected in rather a

clumsy and piecemeal way, can still be seen behind the High Altar today.

The new Abbey remained incomplete until 1376, when the rebuilding of

the Nave began; it was not finished until 150 years later, but the master

masons carried on a similar thirteenth-century Gothic, French-influenced

design, as that of Henry III’s initial work, over that period, giving the

whole a beautiful harmony of style.

In the early sixteenth century the Lady Chapel was rebuilt as the

magnificent Henry YII Chapel; with its superb fan-vaulting it is one of

Westminster’s great treasures.

In the mid-eighteenth century the last malor additions - the two

western towers designed by Hawksmoor - were made to the main fabric of the

Abbey.

THE NAVE was begun by Abbot Litlington who financed the work with

money left by Cardinal Simon Langham, his predecessor, for the use of the

monastery. The master mason in charge of the work was almost certainly the

great Henry Yevele. His design depended on the extra strength given to the

structure by massive flying buttresses. These enabled the roof to be

raised to a height of 102 feet. The stonework of the vaulting has been

cleaned and the bosses gilded in recent years.

At the west end of the Nave is a magnificent window filled with

stained glass of 1735, probably designed by Sir James Thornhill (1676-

1734).(He also painted the interior of the dome in St Paul’s Cathedral} The

design shows Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with fourteen prophets, and

underneath are the arms of King Sebert, Elizabeth I, George II, Dean

Wilcocks and the Collegiate Church of St Peter in Westminster.

Also at the west end of the Nave is the grave of the Unknown Warrior.

The idea for such a memorial is said to have come from a British

chaplain who noticed, in a back garden at Armeentieeres, a grave with the

simple inscription: «An unknown British soldier». In 1920 the body of

another unknown soldier was brought back from the battlefields to be

reburied in the Abbey on 11 November. George Y and Queen Mary and many

other members of the royal family attended the service, 100 holders of the

Victoria Cross lining the Nave as a Guard of Honour. On a nearby pillar

hangs the Congressional Medal, the highest award which can be conferred by

the United St ates.

From the Nave roof hang chandeliers, both giving light and in

daylight reflecting it from their hundreds of pedant crystals. They were

a gift to mark the 900th anniversary of the Abbey and are of Waterford

glass.

At the east end of the Nave is the screen separating it from the

Choir. Designed by the then Surveyor, Edward Blore, in 1834, it is the

fourth screen to be placed here; the wrought-iron gates, however, remain

from a previous screen. Within recent years the screen has been painted

and glided.

THE CHOIR was originally the part of the Abbey in which the monks

worshipped, but there is now no trace of the pre- Reformation fittings,

for in the late eighteenth century Kneene, the then Surveyor, removed the

thirteenth-century stalls and designed a smaller Choir. This was in turn

destroyed in the mid-nineteenth century by Edward Blore, who created the

present Choir in Victoria Gothic style and removed the partitions which

until then had blocked off the transepts

It is here that the choir of about twenty-two boys and twelve Lay

Vicars sings the daily services. The boys are educated at the Choir School

attached to the Abbey ;mention of such a school is made in the fifteenth

century and it may be even older in origin. For some centuries it was

linked with Westminster School, but became independent in the mid-

nineteenth century.

The Organ was originally built by Shrider in 1730. Successive

rebuildings in 1849,1884,1909,,and 1937 and extensive work in 1983 have

resulted in the present instrument.

THE SANCTUARY is the heart of the Abbey, where the High Altar stands

The altar and the reredos behind it, with a mosaic of the Last Supper, were

designed by Sir Gilbert Scott in 1867. Standing on the altar are two

candlesticks, bought with money bequeathed by a serving-maid, Sarah

Hughes, in the seventeenth century. In front of the altar, but protected by

carpeting, is another of the Abbey’s treasures - a now-very-worn pavement

dating from the thirteenth century. The method of its decoration is known

as Cosmati work, after the Italian family who developed the technique of

inlaying intricate designs made up of small pieces of coloured marble into

a plain marble ground.

THE NORTH TRANSEPT, to the left of the Sanctuary, has a beautiful rose

window designed by Sir James Thornhill, showing eleven Apostles. The

Transept once led to Solomon’s Porch and now leads to the nineteenth-

century North Front.

THE HENRY YII CHAPEL, beyond the apse, was begun in 1503 as a burial

place for Henry YI, on the orders of Henry YII, but it was Henry.YII

himself who was finally buried here, in an elaborate tomb. The master

mason, who designed the chapel was probably Robert Vertue his brother

William constructed the vault at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, in 1505 and

this experience may have helped in the creation of the magnificent vaulting

erected here a few years later.

The chapel has an apse and side aisles which are fan-vaulted, and the

central section is roofed with extraordinarily intricate and finely-

detailed circular vaulting ,embellished with more Tudor badges and with

carved pendants, which is literally breath-taking in the perfection of its

beauty and artistry.

Beneath the windows, once filled with glass painted by Bernard Flower

of which only fragments now remain, are ninety-four of the original 107

statues of saints, placed in richly embellished niches. Beneath these, in

turn, hang the banners of the living Knights Grand Cross of the Order of

the Bath, whose chapel this is. When the Order was founded in 1725, extra

stalls and seats were added to those originally provided. To the stalls

are attached plates recording the names and arms of past Knights of the

Order, while under the seats can be seen finely carved misericords.

The altar, a copy of the sixteenth-century altar incorporates two

of the original pillars and under its canopy hangs a fifteenth-century

Madonna and Child by Vivarini.

In the centre of the apse, behind the altar, stand the tomb of Henry

YII and Elizabeth of York, protected by a bronze screen. The tomb was the

work of Torrigiani and the effigies of the king and queen are finely

executed in gilt bronze.

In later years many more royal burials took place in the chapel. Mary

I, her half-sister Elizabeth I and half-brother Edward YI all lie here The

Latin inscription on thetomb - on which only Elizabeth Ist effigy rests -

reads: «Consorts both in throne and grave, here rest we two sisters,

Elizabeth and Mary, in the hope of one Resurrection».

In the south asle lies Mary Queen of Scots, mother of James Yi and I,

who brought her body from Peterborough and gave her a tomb even more

magnificent than that which he had erected for his cousin Elizabeth.I.

In the same aisle lies Henry YII’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, Countess

of Richmond. Her effigy, a bronze by Torrigiani, shows her in old age.

She was known for her charitable works and for her intellect - she founded

Christ’s and St John’s Colleges at Cambridge - and these activities are

recorded in the inscription composed by Erasmus. Also in this aisle is

the tomb of Margaret, Countess of Lennox.

THE CHAPEL OF ST EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, containing his shrine, lies

east of the Sanctuary at the heart of the Abbey. It is closed off from the

west by a stone screen, probably of fifteenth-century date, carved with

scenes from the life of Edward the Confessor; it is approached from the

east via a bridge from the Henry YII Chapel.

The shrine seen today within the chapel is only a ghost of its former

self. It originally had three parts: a stone base decorated with Cosmati

work, a gold feretory containing the saint’s coffin, a canopy above which

could be raised to reveal the feretory or lowered to protect it. Votive

offerings of gold and jewels were given to enrich the feretory over the

centuries. To this shrine came many pilgrims, and the sick were frequently

left beside it overnight in the hope of a cure. All this ceased at the

Reformation The shrine was dismantled and stored by the monks; the gold

feretory was taken away from them, but they were allowed to rebury the

saint elsewhere in the Abbey.

It was during the reign of Mary I that a partial restoration of the

shrine took place. The stone base was re-assembled, the coffin was placed,

in the absence of a feretory, in the top part of the stone base and the

canopy positioned on top. The Chapel has a Cosmati floor, similar to that

before the High Altar, and a blank space in the design shows where the

shrine once stood; it also indicates that the shrine was originally

raised up on a platform, making the canopy visible beyond the western

screen. The canopy of the shrine has recently been restored, and hopefully

one day the rest of the shrine will also be restored.

And within the chapel can be seen the Coronation Chair and the tombs

of five kings and four queens. At the eastern end is the tomb and Chantey

Chapel of Henry Y, embellished with carvings including scenes of

Henry Y’s coronation. The effigy of the king once had a silver head and

silver regalia, and was covered in silver regalia, and was covered in

silver gilt, but this precious metal was stolen in 1546.

Eleanor of Castle, first wife of Edward I, lies beside the

Chapel. Her body was carried to Westminster from Lincoln, a memorial

cross being erected at each place where the funeral procession rested.

Beside her lies Henry III, responsible for the rebuilding of the

Abbey, in a tomb of Purbeck marble. Next to his tomb is that of Edward I.

Richard II and Anne of Bohemia, Edward III and Philippa of Hainnault, and

Catherine de Valois, Henry Y’s Queen, also lie in this chapel.

THE SOUTH TRANSEPT is lit by a large rose window, with glass dating

from 1902. Beneath it, in the angles above the right and left arches, are

two of the finest carvings in the Abbey, depicting sensing angels. In

addition to the many monuments there are two fine late thirteen-century

wall-paintings, uncovered in 1936, to be seen by the door leading into St

Faith’s Chapel. They depict Christ showing his wounds to Doubting Thomas,

and St Christopher. Beside the south wall rises the dormer staircase, once

used by the monks going from their dormitory to the Choir for their

night offices.

POET’S CORNER

One of the most well-known parts of Westminster Abbey, Poet’s

Corner can be found in the south Transept. It was not originally designated

as the burial place of writers, playwrights and poets; the first poet to be

buried here, Geoffrey Chaucer, was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey

because he had been Clerk of Works to the Palace of Westminster, not

because he had written the Canterbury Tales. However, the inscription over

his grave, placed there by William Caxton - the famous printer whose press

was just beyond the transept wall - mentioned that he was a poet.

Over 150 years later, during the flowering of English

literature in the sixteenth century, a more magnificent tomb was erected

to Chaucer by Nicholas Brigham and in 1599 Edmund Spencer was laid to rest

nearby. These two tombs began a tradition which developed over succeeding

centuries.

Burial or commemoration in the abbey did not always occur at or

soon after the time of death - many of those whose monuments now stand here

had to wait a number of years for recognition; Byron, for example, whose

lifestyle caused a scandal although his poetry was much admired, died in

1824 but was finally given a memorial only in 1969. Even Shakespeare,

buried at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1616, had to wait until 1740 before a

monument, designed by William Kent, appeared in Poet’s Corner. Other poets

and writers, well-known in their own day, have now vanished into obscurity,

with only their monuments to show that they were once famous.

Conversely, many whose writings are still appreciated today have

never been memorialised in Poet’s Corner, although the reason may not

always be clear. Therefore a resting place or memorial in Poet’s Corner

should perhaps not be seen as a final statement of a writer or poet’s

literary worth, but more as a reflection of their public standing at the

time of death - or as an indication of the fickleness of Fate.

Some of the most famous to lie here, in addition to those detailed

on the next two pages include BenJonson, John Dryden, Alfred, Lord

Tennyson, Robert Browning and John Masefield, among the poets, and William

Camden, Dr Samuel Johnson, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray,

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Hardy among the

writers.

Charles Dickens’s grave attracts particular interest. As a writer

who drew attention to the hardships born by the socially deprived and who

advocated the abolition of the slave trade, he won enduring fame and

gratitude and today, more than 110 years later, a wreath is still laid on

his tomb on the anniversary of his death each year.

Those who have memorials here, although they are buried elsewhere,

include among the poets John Milton, William Wordworth, Thomas Gray, John

Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Burns, William Blake, T.S. Eliot and

among the writers Samuel Butler, Jane Austen, Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Walter

Scott, John Ruskin, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte and Henry James.

By no means all those buried in the South Transept are poets or

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