Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Nearby is the surprisingly shabby Coronation Chair, on which almost every monarch
since Edward II, including the current one, has sat during their coronation.
In Poet's Corner you'll find a great assortment of memorials to the country's greatest
men (and a few women) of letters, clustered around the grave of Geoffrey Chaucer, who
was buried here in 1400. These include a statue of Shakespeare, his arm resting on a
pile of topics, Jacob Epstein's bust of William Blake, as well as tributes to Jane Austen,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Milton, Dylan Thomas, and D. H. Lawrence.
Statesmen and men of science—Disraeli, Newton, Charles Darwin—are also
interred in the Abbey or honored by monuments. Near to the west door is the 1965
memorial to Sir Winston Churchill and the tomb of the Unknown Warrior, com-
memorating the British dead of World War I.
Broad Sanctuary, SW1. &   020/7222-5152. www.westminster-abbey.org. Admission £15 adults, £12 students
and seniors, £6 children 11-18, £30 family ticket, free for children 10 and under. Mon-Tues and Thurs-Fri
9:30am-3:30pm; Wed 9:30am-5pm; Sat 9:30am-1:30pm. Tube: Westminster or St. James's Park.
Westminster Cathedral CATHEDRAL This spectacular brick-and-stone
church (1903) is the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church in Britain. Adorned
in retro-Byzantine style, it's massive: 108m (354 ft.) long and 47m (154 ft.) wide. One
hundred different marbles compose the richly decorated interior, and mosaics embla-
zon the chapels and the vaulting of the sanctuary. If you take the elevator to the top of
the 82-m (269-ft.) campanile, you'll be rewarded with sweeping views that take in
Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and St. Paul's Cathedral. The cathedral's
renowned choir usually performs daily: Download a timetable from the website.
Ashley Place, SW1. &   020/7798-9055. www.westminstercathedral.org.uk. Cathedral free. Tower £5.
Cathedral services Mon-Sat 7am-7pm; Sun 8am-8pm. Tower Mon-Sat 9:30am-5pm; Sat-Sun 9:30am-
6pm. Tube: Victoria.
The South Bank
Florence Nightingale Museum MUSEUM The museum celebrates the
life and work of one of the great Victorian British women, best known for nursing
soldiers during the Crimean War (1853-56). However, you'll learn that her greatest
achievement was probably as a statistician. She used then revolutionary techniques
for presenting data, such as pie charts, to prove the importance of sanitation and good
hygiene in lowering the death rate of wounded soldiers.
The museum holds many objects owned or used by Nightingale, including clothes,
furniture, letters, and even her pet stuffed owl. There are also audio-visual displays
on her life and a reconstruction of a Crimean ward scene.
The museum is very much slanted toward families and schoolchildren—parties of
whom arrive regularly during term time—and free family events, such as storytellings,
art workshops, and trails are put on most weekends.
St. Thomas' Hospital, 2 Lambeth Palace Rd., SE1. &   020/7620-0374. www.florence-nightingale.co.uk.
Admission £5.80 adults, £4.80 seniors, students, children ages 5-15, and persons with disabilities, free for
children 4 and under; £16 family ticket. Daily 10am-5pm. Tube: Westminster, Waterloo, or Lambeth North.
Garden Museum MUSEUM Housed in a small medieval church, St. Mary-
Lambeth, next door to Lambeth Palace (the official residence of the Archbishop of Can-
terbury), this offers a celebration of that most British of pastimes—gardening. Its focus is
unashamedly domestic, concentrating less on the Capability Browns of the world with
their grand landscaped parks, than on the various unsung heroes of suburbia carefully
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