Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
INFORMATION AND TOURS
Information
If you have any questions, ask the vergers
in the black gowns, the marshals in red or the abbey
volunteers in green. Note that you can visit the Chapter
House, the Cloisters and the College Garden (free
admission), without buying an abbey ticket, by entering
via Dean's Yard.
1
Tours
There are guided tours
by the vergers, which allow
access to the Confessor's Tomb (Mon-Sat, times vary; ring
for details; 1hr 30min; £3). A free audioguide is available.
Services
Admission to the daily services at the abbey
(check website for details) is, of course, free. Evensong is at
5pm on weekdays.
Brief history
Legend has it that the first church on the site was consecrated by St Peter himself, who
was rowed across the Thames by a fisherman named Edric, to whom he granted a giant
salmon as a reward. More verifiable is that there was a small Benedictine monastery
here by the tenth century, for which
Edward the Confessor
built an enormous church.
Nothing much remains of Edward's church, which was consecrated on December 28,
1065, just eight days before his death. The following January his successor, Harold, was
crowned, and, on Christmas Day, William the Conqueror rode up the aisle on
horseback, thus firmly establishing the tradition of royal coronation within the
Confessor's church.
It was in honour of Edward (who had by now been canonized) that
Henry III
began to
rebuild the abbey in 1245, in the French Gothic style of the recently completed Rheims
Cathedral. The monks were kicked out during the Reformation, but the church's status as
the nation's royal mausoleum saved it from any physical damage. In the early eighteenth
century, Nicholas Hawksmoor designed the quasi-Gothic west front, while the most
recent additions can be seen above the west door: a series of statues representing
twentieth-century martyrs, from Dietrich Bonhöffer to Martin Luther King.
Statesmen's Aisle and the Sanctuary
The north transept, where you enter, is littered with overblown monuments to
long-forgotten empire-builders and nineteenth-century politicians, and traditionally
known as
Statesmen's Aisle
. From here, you can go straight to the central
Sanctuary
,
site of the royal coronations. The most precious work of art here is the thirteenth-
century Italian floor mosaic known as the
Cosmati pavement
. It depicts the universe
with interwoven circles and squares of Purbeck marble, glass, and red and green
porphyry, though it's sometimes covered by a carpet to protect it. The richly gilded
high altar, like the ornately carved
choir stalls
, is, in fact, a neo-Gothic construction
from the nineteenth century.
The side chapels
Some of the best funereal art is tucked away in
St Michael's Chapel
, east of the
Statesmen's Aisle, where you can admire the remarkable monument to
Francis Vere
(1560-1609), one of the greatest soldiers of the Elizabethan period, made out of two
slabs of black marble, between which lies Sir Francis; on the upper slab, supported by
four knights, his armour is laid out, to show that he died away from the field of battle.
The most striking grave, by Roubiliac, is that in which
Elizabeth Nightingale
, who died
from a miscarriage, collapses in her husband's arms while he tries to fight off the
skeletal figure of Death, who is climbing out of the tomb.
In the
north ambulatory
, two more chapels contain ostentatious Tudor and Stuart
tombs that replaced the altarpieces that had graced them before the Reformation. One
of the most extravagant tombs is that of Lord Hunsdon, Lord Chancellor to Elizabeth I,
which dominates the
Chapel of St John the Baptist
, and, at 36ft in height, is the tallest in
the entire abbey. More intriguing, though, are the sarcophagi in the neighbouring
Chapel
of St Paul
: one depicts eight “weepers”, kneeling children along the base of the tomb - the
two holding skulls predeceased their parents - while the red-robed Countess of Sussex has
a beautiful turquoise and gold porcupine (the family emblem) as her prickly footrest.
