A Visit to Westminster

A Visit to Westminster

Simon Rogerson

July 29, 2024

I recently visited our country's great capital city for a few days. I did a mixture of things down there; some historical, some cultural, come culinary (and not just sitting in my hotel room eating crisps) but which included a visit to Westminster Abbey. The first thing to say about the abbey, more than anything else, is wow...there were a lot of people visiting. It makes York Minster look like an empty, unvisited place a long way off the tourist trail. Now I did visit in the summer holidays and it may not always be like that but my word there were some people in there. I had to book a ticket for a specific time and it soon become obvious why as otherwise I may not have psychically been able to fit in to the building. 

There were lots of interesting things to see of course, my favourite being Britain's oldest door. I didn't know I was looking for it until I found it but once I had it all made sense.

They had good padlocks in the 1050s

I was lucky to get to stop and photo it. Once you're in the building, the mass of people moving around the place act like a river with a strong current. If you get pulled in then you've just got to go with the flow. And if you miss your turnoff it's tough luck, you've just got to keep on going round and round until you get out. A bit like the one way system around Leeds City Centre.

This isn't helped of course by the sheer number of memorials, statues and burials taking up space there. Just to give a small example, every single 18th or 19th Century politician to have left some sort of lasting legacy (and some who didn't) all have their own larger than life marble statue, crammed in like sardines and largely ignored by the crowds. Then there are the memorials to the poets, the artists, the actors, the scientists, the soldiers, the sailors etc etc etc. 

It's a major part of the building's function of course and anyone who is anyone aspires to be memorialised there. Certainly it is a step up in kudos to get a memorial in a national centre like Westminster rather than in a regional one like York Minster. The engineer John Smeaton, poet Ted Hughes and abolitionist William Wilberforce are just three of the many Yorkshiremen memorialised in Westminster rather than in York.  

And men is the appropriate word. There are plenty of memorials to women there, including our own Bronte sisters, but it is certainly not balanced. The job to balance them would be huge undertaking and possibly requiring almost doubling the space somehow. 

But maybe that's not a bad idea. Why not turn it into two buildings. Leave the abbey there to keep up it's function as a working church and for people to visit who want to know it's specific history. Then move out all of the statues and plaques into a separate National Memorial Centre for people to visit independently. I know people have historically wanted to be memorialised in the abbey itself but that's only because they every other important person in  memorialised there. If they were all moved out together I'm sure that wouldn't be an issue. 

After I escaped the stream of people I went to get some refreshments in the cafe there and realised that crikey that is something we (sometimes) do very well. I was there enjoying my tea and scones, sat between two pairs of Americans who had each ordered the full Afternoon Tea. Once their food arrived (finger sandwiches, dainty cakes etc. in that wonderfully tiered presentation that in comes in) they all looked like they had died and gone to heaven. They could barely believe their eyes. It really is something we do very well. Actually, the more I ponder about it, the more I think that what I am trying to say is can we build a National Memorial Centre to Afternoon Tea. It's bound to bring in the tourists if nothing else.