Westminster Abbey, London — Visitor Guide & Things to Do Nearby

Westminster Abbey is one of the most important religious buildings in the English-speaking world and the coronation church of the British monarchy for nearly 1,000 years.

The current Gothic church was largely built between 1245 and 1272 under King Henry III, though a Benedictine monastery has stood on this site since at least the 10th century. Edward the Confessor built the first great church here in 1065, just weeks before his death, and William the Conqueror was crowned in the abbey on Christmas Day 1066.

Every British monarch since William has been crowned here, with the sole exceptions of Edward V and Edward VIII. The Coronation Chair, made in 1296, sits inside the abbey and has been used at every coronation since 1308.

The abbey is also a burial place and memorial for over 3,300 people. Poets' Corner, in the south transept, commemorates Britain's greatest writers: Chaucer, Dickens, Hardy, Kipling, and many others. The nave holds the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, containing a soldier brought from France in 1920.

Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and Stephen Hawking are all buried or memorialised here. The abbey also hosted 16 royal weddings, including that of the future Queen Elizabeth II in 1947 and William and Catherine in 2011.

If you're on a Questo quest through Westminster, the Abbey is a stop where a millennium of British history is contained within a single building.