Visit to Westminster Abbey

A group of us enjoyed an excellent two-hour guided tour around Westminster Abbey, led by a lady called Lulu.

While we are all familiar with this iconic church not many of us had visited its interior. So it was a revelation to experience its special atmosphere ‘in the flesh’, have many details pointed out and its 1,000+ year history at the heart of the nation explained.

We were awed by the magnificent soaring medieval and Tudor architecture and the beautiful embellishments and stained glass (although the jury was somewhat out on the more modern window designed by David Hockney).

We also enjoyed seeing the Coronation Chair, complete with ages-old graffiti scored into it by naughty boys from Westminster School. We learnt that, given the chair’s extreme old age, the Abbey had to test that it could still carry the weight of the Stone of Scone before King Charles III’s coronation.

We walked solemnly around Queen Elizabeth I’s elaborate tomb (which sits above that of her sister Mary) and learnt that, while King James I paid £700 for this tomb he paid a whopping £2,000 for that of his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots. Luckily, the two regal rivals lie in chantries on opposite sides of the nave.

The tour ended with a visit to Poets’ Corner to pay our respects to such literary giants as Dickens, Chaucer, the Eliots – T.S. and George - and the Brontës.

Thank you to our events team for arranging this excellent visit.