Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey is one of the United Kingdom's most important religious buildings. It was built between 1045 and 1050 by Edward the Confessor. In 1045 King Edward added a large donation of land and he started the construction of a Romanesque style church which was consacrated in 1065. In 1245 it was rebuilt in the French Gothic style. The abbey is 156 meters long and 34 meters wide; the central nave is the longest Gothic nave in Great Britain. The entire transept, to the right and the left of the main altar, is occupied by the burials of famous people. Westminster is the Church where all the coronations of kings and queens of the U.K. took place and where most of the monarchs were buried until 1760. In the Poets' Corner there are the graves of the most outstanding English writers and poets, such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Handel, Charles Dickens and Rudyard Kipling. There are also memorials like Shakespeare's monument. Other very famous people buried in Westminster Abbey are Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton. Behind the main altar there is the Royal Chapel, which collects about a hundred british monarchs' tombs. In the abbey there is the chair of King Edward, the throne on which queens or kings sit for their coronation. Moreover, lots of Royal weddings took place here: for example Queen Elizabeth II and her grandson Prince William, Duke of Cambridge married here.

EMANUELE METELLINO