Minster means “mother church” and West just means West. Westminster Abbey sits on a former swamp on the former outskirts of London. Founded by monks sometime before 1000, now in 2026, it is a huge tourist attraction, but also a working church, a tomb for thousands (3,000 to be exact), and where kings and queens have been crowned since 1066. We visited around 2 pm, when much of the crowds had dissipated.
Our first stop was the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries, opened quite late in the abbey’s history in 2018. These galleries sit in the triforium, aka attic, . Formerly storage, they now contain effigies of kings and queens and other important personages and 300 other treasures collected over a thousand years. Of particular interest to me was the death mask of Henry VII, used in his funeral procession. Compared to the wax faces of other royal effigies, I felt I could get a measure of this man. Though perhaps he looks so serene because he has just escaped his earthly burdens.
As the Galleries were closing, we headed downstairs to the main level, where 17 monarchs are buried, plus thousands of others with talent or money or both. You need a catalog and a week to track everything, so I’ll just provide a few examples that caught my attention. First, the plumber buried in the cloisters, Philip Clark. He died in 1707, age 43.
Or Edward Mansell, eldest son of Edward Mansell, Sr., "dyed" in 1681 in the “15th year of his Age.” I appreciate that the young and the lowly found a place at Westminster Abbey. Of course, the famous of their own doing are here as well. Sir Isaac Newton warrants a magnificent statue, but famous physicist Steven Hawking’s ashes are nearby too.
We also saw the tomb of Edward the Confessor (died 1066 and first builder of the church), and Queen Elizabeth I, who is stacked on top of her half sister and nemesis, Bloody Mary. Queen Elizabeth I’s effigy is based on her death mask, with a regal and prominent nose.
We also spent some time at the Poet's Corner, where many men and a few women of letters are buried or commemorated. Geoffrey Chaucer inadvertently started the trend. He was buried in Westminster because he managed some of its affairs, not because he wrote Canterbury Tales. Here you see Benjamin and Steven standing in front of his coffin. Shakespeare has a nice big display, but is buried in Stratford upon Avon, his home town. Charles Dickens is buried here. Samuel Johnson and Ben Jonson are buried here. (Ben famously said, "two feet by two feet will do for all I want" and he is buried vertically at Westminster.)
Most evenings, there is Evensong at 5 pm and we did see choir boys enter the Quire, which is kind of a church within a church where the monks held private services. We were able to hear a few practice chords of their exalted voices. Here you see Steven perusing the floor of the Quire before this performance, to study the gravestones embedded in the floor.
Before we exited, we also got a look at the Coronation Chair, built circa 1300. It's a rather plain wooden chair that has some antique graffiti and missing parts, but is pulled out for coronations regardless, most recently for Charles III, crowned in 2023.
You will be overcome with the history of the place and a semester of study to fully prepare wouldn't hurt. But if you can't get in the semester, go anyway. You will find something unexpected and fascinating regardless.
