Westminster Abbey

The Building That Has Seen Every Monarch Since 1066

Westminster Abbey is not a royal palace, not a cathedral (it has its own Dean and answers directly to the Crown rather than to a bishop), and not a museum, even though it contains more historic objects than most museums in the country. It is an active place of worship that also happens to be the site of every English and British coronation since William the Conqueror in 1066, and the burial place of 17 monarchs, along with Chaucer, Newton, Darwin, Dickens, and about 3,000 others.

The building itself spans several centuries of work. Edward the Confessor built a church here in 1042. Henry III began demolishing and rebuilding it in Gothic style from 1245, a project that ran for centuries. The nave was not completed until 1517. The twin western towers were finished in 1745, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor. The result is a building that looks stylistically coherent from the outside but contains chapels, cloisters, and galleries spanning nearly a thousand years.

A practical note before you visit: as of October 2025, adult tickets cost £31. Children 6 to 17 pay £14; under-5s are free. The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries, a museum space in the medieval triforium overlooking the nave, cost an additional £5 for adults and are free for children under 18. If you are visiting in the summer of 2026, check the current VAT situation: a temporary 5% VAT reduction on full-price tickets was in place from late June 2026 onward, which affects the final price.

Opening hours are Monday to Friday 09:30 to 15:30, Saturday 09:30 to 15:00. Sunday is closed to regular visitors; services only. The Abbey closes for royal events and state occasions, sometimes at short notice, so check the official website within a day or two of your planned visit.

What to Actually Focus On

The Abbey has audio guides in multiple languages included with admission. The standard routing takes you through the nave, choir, chapels, Poets’ Corner, and out through the cloisters. Allow two hours minimum; three is better if you are actually reading inscriptions and looking at objects rather than moving with the crowd.

The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is immediately inside the west door, so you pass it on entry. An unidentified British soldier from the First World War, brought from France in 1920, is buried here under a black marble slab. The grave is covered in red poppies throughout the year. It is one of the most visited individual graves in the world and one of the few places in the Abbey where you are asked to step around rather than over. Worth pausing at the entry rather than pushing through.

The Coronation Chair in the Chapel of St. George is the oldest piece of furniture in Britain still used for its original purpose. Edward I had it made in 1300 to hold the Stone of Scone, which he seized from Scotland in 1296. The chair has been used for every coronation since 1308. What most guides do not mention: in 1914, suffragettes placed a bomb packed with metal bolts next to the chair as part of their arson and bombing campaign. The explosion cracked the chair and broke the Stone in half, though the damage to the stone was not discovered until 1950. Also in 1950, Scottish nationalists broke into the Abbey on Christmas night and stole the Stone; it was recovered months later in time for the 1953 coronation. The Stone now normally lives in Edinburgh Castle and is brought to Westminster only for coronations.

Poets’ Corner in the south transept is where the literary monuments are concentrated. Chaucer is actually buried here (he died in 1400 and was the first poet interred at the Abbey). Others came later by memorial rather than burial: Shakespeare has a monument but is buried in Stratford. Jane Austen is buried in Winchester Cathedral, not here, despite a memorial; a common point of confusion. T.S. Eliot, who was American-born but a British citizen, has a floor stone near the entrance.

The Quire and High Altar are where you stand to look back at the full length of the nave: the height of the Gothic vaulting, the north-south transepts crossing beneath the lantern tower, the overall proportions of the building. This is the best architectural view in the Abbey and is often rushed past.

The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries require the extra £5 ticket and a lift (accessible) or a spiral stair to the medieval triforium, the gallery level above the main arcade. The view down into the nave is exceptional. The collection includes objects from coronations, medieval Westminster, and the Abbey’s history over a thousand years. If you have any interest in medieval objects or British royal history, this is the most concentrated single collection in the building.

The Cloisters and Garden

After the main building, exit through the cloisters. The south cloister dates from the 13th century and the east walk from the 14th; together they enclose a quiet garden square called College Garden. It is one of the oldest gardens in England, cultivated since at least the 11th century by the monks as a source of medicinal herbs. It is open to visitors and almost no one goes. On a crowded day at the Abbey, the garden is noticeably peaceful.

The Chapter House, off the east cloister walk, has medieval floor tiles from around 1250 that are among the most extensive and intact medieval tile pavements in England. It was used as the meeting place of Parliament in the 13th and 14th centuries before Parliament moved permanently to the Palace of Westminster.

Evensong

If you can arrange your visit to include Evensong, attend it. The service runs most days at 17:00 and lasts around 45 minutes. Entry is free for services; you enter through the Great North Door rather than as a tourist. The Abbey’s choir is among the finest in England, and the acoustic in the Quire is very good. Sitting in the stalls listening to choral Evensong in a building that has been doing this since the 13th century is a different experience than anything the tourist visit offers.

Check the schedule on the official website before you go; services are occasionally cancelled or moved for rehearsals and events.

Getting There

Westminster tube station on the Circle and District lines is a 3-minute walk to the main entrance. St. James’s Park station (on the same lines) offers a quieter approach from the other direction. The area is also an easy walk from Waterloo (15 minutes over the bridge) or Victoria (10 minutes). There is no parking worth mentioning.

The entrance for regular visitors is on the west side, facing Parliament Square. Arrive 15 minutes before your booked slot; the security queue is fast but not instant.

Where to Eat Nearby

The Westminster area is not a food neighbourhood. Politicians’ sandwiches at their desks, civil servants’ cafeteria lunches: that is what the immediate surroundings cater to. You will not find a cluster of good independent restaurants within a five-minute walk of the Abbey.

The Cinnamon Club on Great Smith Street is the notable exception: a respected Indian restaurant in a converted Victorian library, within 10 minutes’ walk of the Abbey. It is good and it knows its prices. Worth booking for dinner if you want something serious in the area.

St. Ermin’s Hotel on Caxton Street does afternoon tea that is less aggressively tourist-oriented than the options immediately around Westminster. Reasonable quality and less of a production than some of the central London afternoon tea institutions.

For a quick lunch, Tothill Street and Strutton Ground (a short street market on weekdays) have sandwich shops and cafes that serve the parliamentary and office crowd. Practical and unpretentious.

The honest advice: have a proper meal before the visit or plan to travel to Soho, Fitzrovia, or the South Bank for dinner. Westminster itself is not the draw for food.

Where to Stay

The Rubens at the Palace on Buckingham Palace Road is directly across from the Royal Mews and a 10-minute walk from the Abbey. Victorian in style, well-run, and positioned between all the major Westminster attractions.

The Goring Hotel on Beeston Place has been there since 1910 and is still family-run. It is understated for a luxury hotel, the rooms are comfortable rather than designed-within-an-inch-of-their-life, and the kitchen is solid. It was the hotel chosen by the Middleton family the night before the 2011 royal wedding. Worth it if the budget allows.

Park Plaza Westminster Bridge is across the Thames, five minutes from the Abbey on foot, with river-view rooms looking toward the Houses of Parliament. A practical and comfortable choice with more square footage than many comparable central London hotels.

Budget visitors staying further out should use Victoria as the central transport hub; it is two tube stops or a 15-minute walk from Westminster, and the area around Victoria has more affordable accommodation options than the immediate Westminster vicinity.

One genuinely useful piece of advice: if you are in London for several days and want to visit the Abbey, go on a weekday and book your ticket for the 09:30 opening. The first hour, before the tour groups arrive in force around 11:00, is notably quieter. The afternoon shift gets progressively more crowded and the last entry for a 15:30 closing is around 13:30, which does not give you enough time if you want to see the Galleries as well.