WESTMINSTER ABBEY

Gevorg Gevorgyan

History of westminster Abbey

According to a tradition first reported by Sulcard in about 1080, the Abbey was first

founded in the time of Mellitus (d. 624), Bishop of London, on the present site,

then known as Thorn Island; based on a late tradition that a fisherman called

Aldrich on the River Thames saw a vision of Saint Peter near the site. This seems to

be quoted to justify the gifts of salmon from Thames fishermen that the Abbey

received in later years. The proven origins are that in the 960s or early 970s,

Saint Dunstan, assisted by King Edgar, installed a community of

Benedictine monks here. A stone abbey was built around 1045–1050 by King

Edward the Confessor as part of his palace there and was consecrated on 28

December 1065,[1] only a week before the Confessor's death and subsequent funeral

and burial. It was the site of the last coronation prior to the

Norman conquest of England, that of his successor Harold II. From 1245 it was

rebuilt by Henry III who had selected the site for his burial

A layout plan dated 1894

King Edward's Chair, sometimes known as St Edward's Chair or The Coronation Chair, is the throne on which the British monarch sits for the coronation. It was commissioned in 1296 by King Edward I to contain the coronation stone of Scotland — known as the Stone of Scone — which he had captured from the Scots who had kept it at Scone Abbey. The chair was named after England's only canonised king, Edward the Confessor, and was kept in his shrine of St Edward's Chapel at Westminster Abbey.

King Edward’s Chair

King Edward’s Chair (Coronation Chair)

Photos

The tomb of King Henry III of England.

Four of the ten Christian martyrs depicted in statues above the Great West Door

Photos

North entrance The cloister

Photos

Handel Commemoration in 1784

The Quire in 1848.