London’s most magnificent royal church is a trove of delights

Seven wonders within Westminster Abbey

The stones, bones and thrones of the famed Westminster Abbey provide a wonderfully cluttered walk through its English religious, royal and architectural past.

1 Clamber into the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries

Wedged into attic space above the nave’s arches, this exhibition space provides a marvellous angel’s-eye view of the abbey’s interior and displays a collection of wonderful bric-a-brac. Among the items are a 14th-century illuminated missal, sculptures, elaborately embroidered ecclesiastical vestments and Prince William’s marriage licence. But the highlight is the powerful and spooky wax or wooden funeral effigies of medieval kings and queens. You pay an extra £5 ($10.50) admission for the galleries, but they’re worth every penny.

2 Inspect the Tudor tombs

The abbey’s eastern end is crammed with the tombs of 30 kings and queens. The medieval-era royal tombs have an austere beauty but few of us will know much about the bony occupants. Everyone has heard of Elizabeth I, though, whose pompous stone effigy is resplendent in a Tudor ruff and gilded crown. Her bitter rival and half-sister, Mary I, is squeezed in beside her, while the cousin she beheaded, Mary, Queen of Scots, lies a diplomatic distance across the aisle, looking irritatingly pouty and pious.

3 Pause in admiration of the Lady Chapel

The far north end of the aisle, often referred to as Henry VII Chapel after the king who paid for it, is a medieval masterpiece in Perpendicular Gothic style with elongated stained-glass windows and fan-vaulted ceilings that (presumably inadvertently) resemble interlocking palm trees. Below hang the banners of Knights of the Order of the Bath. Beautifully carved choir stalls and the statues of 95 saints add to the medieval flamboyance. Stained glass commemorating the 1940 Battle of Britain is anachronistic but striking.

4 Rediscover your literary references in Poets’ Corner

More than 100 writers and poets from the 18th century onwards – plus Geoffrey Chaucer, who died in 1400 – are commemorated in a muddle of slabs, busts and effigies in the south transept. Not all are buried here: the likes of a jaunty Shakespeare and pensive-looking Wordsworth merely get statues. The Corner is a romp through the great, good and now almost forgotten literature, with the controversial (such as Byron and Wilde) getting only belated mentions.

5 Crick your neck in the Chapter House

This former meeting space for monks is one of the oldest parts of the abbey. The magnificent uplift of its fanned ceiling, supported by a single central column, feels like standing under an elaborate stone parasol. Scenes from the Last Judgment and Apocalypse – always gruesomely entertaining subjects in churches – appear on wall paintings. Stained-glass windows also catch the eye, but don’t miss the plain oak-panel door dating from 1050 that lays claim to being Britain’s oldest door.

6 Get pensive in Scientists’ Corner

Rack your brain, and you might remember the contributions scientists such as Margaret Cavendish, Charles Darwin, Joseph Hooker, Charles Lyell, Ernest Rutherford and Alfred Russel Wallace made to science – often much to the dismay of the church. All and more are commemorated in the nave’s north-east corner. Isaac Newton’s elaborate marble tomb features him propped up on books and surrounded by cherub-like boys with telescopes and prisms. The ashes of Stephen Hawking, his fellow professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, are interred nearby.

7 Come up for fresh air in the Abbey gardens

These often-overlooked little gems aren’t outstanding garden-wise, but are a delightful antidote to the abbey’s gloomy and often crowded corners. College Garden is 900 years old and a very English space of lawns, ragged flowerbeds and mellow walls. Little Cloister Garden is surrounded by medieval arches and has a Victorian fountain. The quintessentially English collection of surrounding historical buildings is time-warp stuff. You can hear children’s chatter coming from venerable Westminster School just over the wall.

The writer travelled at his own expense.
See westminster-abbey.org