A cheat’s guide to the history of Westminster Abbey

There’s a whole lotta history within the hallowed walls of Westminster Abbey – around 1,000 years’ worth, in case you’re taking notes. Which you should be, because that’s the whole point of this article. Now pay attention at the back as we transform you from lowly court jester to know-all knight of the realm with our easy-to-remember Westminster Abbey facts and figures…

• Smartie-pants fact #1: From William the Conqueror to Charles III, Westminster Abbey has borne witness to the coronation of 39 British and English monarchs. The sole exceptions are Edward V (missing, presumed dead) and Edward VIII (abdicated to marry Wallis Simpson before being officially crowned).
• Smartie-pants fact #2: Commissioned to hold the Stone of Scone* in 1296, the Coronation Chair has been meeting royal bottoms at crowning ceremonies since at least 1399 (Henry II). Among the many alterations to the chair down the years are glass mosaics, gilded lions and graffiti carved by naughty 18th-century choirboys.
• Smartie-pants fact #3: *Edward I’s forces seized the Stone of Scone from Perth Abbey during an invasion in 1296. It wasn’t returned to the Scots until 1996 – that’s a full 700 years, maths fans – and now resides at Edinburgh Castle. Though highly symbolic, the heavy sandstone block is (whisper it) pretty unremarkable to look at, so visitors to Westminster Abbey needn’t feel they’re missing much!

• Smartie-pants fact #1: There have been 16 royal weddings, 39 coronations and some 3,300 burials at Westminster Abbey, and the High Altar has played a central role in many of them. And sure, it's a pretty glitzy affair, all silver gilt candlesticks, saintly statues and Last Supper mosaics. But for our money, the Cosmati pavement – an intricately inlaid Italian marble floor that dates back to the 13th Century – is the real star of the show here.
• Smartie-pants fact #2: Awkwardly, both Mary, Queen of Scots and the cousin who had her beheaded (that’d be the famously axe-happy Elizabeth I) were buried here. They must be turning in their lavish tombs!
• Smartie-pants fact #3: The most recent royal wedding to take place at Westminster Abbey was in 2011, when Wills and Kate tied the knot in front of a reported TV audience of one billion people. By contrast, when Henry I and Princess Matilda of Scotland wed here in 1100, the entire global population numbered around 330 million people.

• Smartie-pants fact #1: There are over 100 writers, poets, playwrights commemorated in Westminster Abbey’s southern transept, aka Poets’ Corner. All the devils are here: Shakespeare, Dickens, Chaucer, Byron and the Brontë sisters among them.
• Smartie-pants fact #2: Know your graves from your memorial stones. Chaucer was the first poet to be laid to rest here, back in 1400. Dickens is here. Likewise Tennyson and Kipling. But Shakespeare? No: the Bard is of course buried in Stratford-upon-Avon. And the Brontës? Their native Yorkshire.
• Smartie-pants fact #3: Philip Larkin’s memorial stone bears moving lines from his 1956 poem ‘An Arundel Tomb’ (‘What remains of us is love’). Presumably the famous opening line of ‘This Be The Verse’ was considered… not appropriate for a house of god.

• Smartie-pants fact #1: Burial plots in this soaring gothic space include Sir Isaac Newton, David Livingstone, Clement Attlee and, peculiarly, Charles Darwin. The world’s best-known creationist buried in the world’s most famous church? It’s a level of irony even Alanis Morisette might consider outlandish.
• Smartie-pants fact #2: That poppy-encircled memorial at the west end of the nave is the grave of the Unknown Soldier. Royal wedding and coronation bouquets are often laid here after the ceremony. It’s also the only tomb in the abbey that visitors are expressly forbidden from walking across, a mark of respect apparently not afforded to e.g. Charles Dickens or Laurence Olivier.
• Smartie-pants fact #3: Look up! The west window dates from 1735 and contains some of the oldest surviving stained glass in Westminster Abbey.

• Smartie-pants fact #1: Henry VII’s lavish Lady Chapel is the final resting place of 15 kings and queens, plus what is believed to be the mortal remains of Edward V and Richard Duke of York, the so-called ‘Princes in the Tower’.
• Smartie-pants fact #2: The Lady Chapel is now also home to the Order of the Bath’s knights, so named because knights-to-be of yore were expected to have a bit of a scrub before presenting themselves to the monarch for the official knighting ceremony. Quite right, too!
• Smartie-pants fact #3: Some of the wooden doors in The Pyx Chamber (essentially an early coin-minting room) are nearly 1,000 years old, so it’s fair to say the quality of craftsmanship is a little better than our modern uPVC equivalents.

And there you have it! Our bluffer’s guide to Westminster Abbey. So now you’re ready to bowl friends over with your historical chutzpah. But what else do you need? Why, The London Pass®, of course! Head over here to secure entry to Westminster Abbey and over 100 more top London attractions.

• Significant events and anniversaries are marked by a full peal of the Abbey bells, which comprises 5,000 different sequences and lasts over three hours. And you thought Elton John’s concerts dragged on a bit.
• Westminster Abbey is home to Britain’s oldest door: an Anglo Saxon oak portal that dates to the reign of Edward the Confessor. Seek it out in the vestibule that leads to the Chapter House. 
• Incendiary bombs hit the Abbey’s lantern roof during World War II, causing molten lead and burning timbers to drop onto the area used for the throne during coronations. Fortunately, no royals were hurt, and volunteers were present to help extinguish the flames.
• Unveiled in 2018, the colourful countryside scene depicted in the north transept’s Queen’s Window was designed by artist David Hockney in celebration of Queen Elizabth II’s long reign.