Westminster Abbey

City of Westminster, United Kingdom

Open to visitors

The interior is normally open, possibly ticketed.

Strollie cannot guarantee access — always check before you travel.

Opening hours: Mo-Sa 09:30-16:00
Wheelchair access: Accessible

From OpenStreetMap — confirm before travelling

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Westminster Abbey, formally the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an Anglican church in London's City of Westminster that has served as the coronation site for 40 English and British monarchs and burial place for 18 monarchs since 1066. Though an abbey housing Benedictine monks existed on the site by the mid-10th century, the present structure began construction in 1245 under Henry III, with King Edward the Confessor's earlier 11th-century church having been commissioned in the 1040s. Following the monastery's dissolution in 1559, Elizabeth I established it as a royal peculiar—a Church of England church answerable directly to the sovereign. The building's Gothic architecture draws chiefly from 13th-century French and English styles, with the Henry VII Chapel at its east end exemplifying Perpendicular Gothic design so magnificently that antiquarian John Leland termed it the "wonder of the world." The abbey contains the remains of more than 3,300 notable figures from British history, including monarchs, prime ministers, poets, scientists, and the Unknown Warrior, earning it the designation as a "National Valhalla" and contributing to its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.