Westminster Abbey, St Margaret's Church London

An Edward the Confessor national pilgrimage keeps alive nearly a millennium of devotion at the royal saint’s shrine, which also features in the London Royal Route

Highlights

• Shrine of St Edward the Confessor
• Medieval icon

Westminster Abbey is England’s only unassailable bastion of Christian tradition. This potent mix of regal and spiritual authority at the heart of London has defied reformers and revolutionaries alike. All other English shrines were destroyed or sidelined, yet nothing has managed to displace St Edward the Confessor’s relics. Even Oliver Cromwell left them and their shrine untouched and was briefly buried in the abbey himself before being unearthed by King Charles II following the Restoration in 1660.

Just about every monarch since 1066 has been crowned in St Edward’s presence – even the ones who didn’t think much of saints. His holy body is in a tall stone shrine in the Chapel of St Edward the Confessor, separated from the high altar by a stone screen. His coffin has lain inside the stone base of this monument since it was built in 1269. The structure was taken down in 1540 but reassembled just 13 years later under Mary I, and has remained untouched ever since.

The shrine is inaccessible to regular visitors because the floor is too delicate to take the footsteps of so many tourists. There is an 8 am Holy Communion service here on Tuesdays, and a national pilgrimage service in mid-October offers another chance to pray at the shrine. You can also visit it on a tour conducted by a verger, which costs £7 extra.

It is understandable that the abbey feels more like a visitor attraction than a place of pilgrimage. This is the busiest paid-for tourist site in England, according to recent figures, ahead of Kew Gardens. The sheer weight of visitor numbers would make access to the little chapel all but impossible on busy days.

There is no alternative shrine in the saint’s memory, although the nave has some general candle stands for the public to use. You can also catch glimpses of the tall medieval shrine structure at several points around the chapel perimeter. It sits in an elevated section of the church just behind the high altar, surrounded by screens and tombs that leave enough gaps for a partial sighting.

The British monarch is crowned by the high altar, on a chair first used by Edward II in 1308. It used to have the Stone of Scone underneath it, but this was moved to Edinburgh in 1996. The Stone of Scone, or Stone of Destiny, was kept by the monks of Iona for the coronation of Scottish kings – possibly first used in a ceremony conducted by St Columba himself, in 574. The stone will be returned to Westminster Abbey for future coronations but otherwise can be seen on public display in Edinburgh Castle.

Rather surprisingly, the chair has been used less than 40 times in the past 700 years, so infrequent are coronations. The chair itself is hard to spot: look out for it while descending the steps from the Lady Chapel. Apart from Mary I, who used a chair given to her by the Pope, every other monarch has been seated here at the moment of their coronation. Even Oliver Cromwell had a go at it when he was inducted as Lord Protector of England, in a ceremony held at Westminster Hall on the other side of the road.

The only other time it has left the abbey in the past 700 years was during the Second World War when it went to Gloucester for safekeeping. A second holy artefact in the church deserves its own side chapel too – though it is rather tucked away at the back of the abbey museum. This is one of just three medieval icons surviving in England, a work of such exquisite detail and devout intent that there is nothing comparable in the entire country.

It is called the Westminster Retable, a ‘retable’ being the reredos or screen that sits behind an altar. Westminster’s example was painted in about 1270, a 3m-long panel which has just enough of its painting intact to glimpse the resurrected world of a true icon. In the centre is an image of Jesus, fragmentary but with his eyes and much of his face radiating a divine peace. It reminded me slightly of one of the most famous icons of Christ, Andrei Rublev’s The Saviour ‘Not Made by Hands’, which is also fragmentary and displayed in Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery.

His image is flanked by the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist, whose faces also mostly survive. To the left of this holy trio is another panel showing four of Christ’s miracles, and on the far left is St Peter, the abbey’s patron saint. The other significant medieval icon to survive is the Wilton Diptych in the National Gallery, which by coincidence includes an image of St Edward the Confessor. Another Retable can be seen at Thornham Parva church in Suffolk, dating from the 14th century.

Elsewhere in this museum is a Roman-era sarcophagus, a 4th-century stone coffin that has a Christian inscription on the side. It was reused for another burial in the Saxon era when a new stone lid was carved with a tall cross. This Roman burial is one of the first known Christian internments in Britain, proving that Westminster has a spiritual heritage far older than its current buildings.

There is some doubt about when the first church was built, but tradition suggests a monastery in the 7th century. The earliest written evidence of a community comes from St Dunstan’s time, around 960. The oldest fabric in the cathedral dates from the last years of St Edward’s reign, the Pyx Chamber near the museum. Westminster Abbey was dedicated on 28 December 1065. Just one week later the king passed away, on 5 January 1066. St Edward spent much of his time devoted to the church, which earned him praise and criticism alike. He was canonised in 1161 and considered the patron saint of England until St George took over in the 14th century. His saint’s day is 5 January, with another day on 13 October marking the translation of his relics into their current shrine.

There are more medieval images to admire in the abbey, including scenes from the Book of Revelations. These are painted around the circumference of the Chapter House, a few in good enough condition to see the details, some very dark, and most of them obliterated. There are medieval sculptures of the Blessed Virgin and the Archangel Gabriel here too, above the door. Poets’ Corner in the south transept has two paintings on the end wall, near Shakespeare’s monument. They show Doubting Thomas and St Christopher carrying the young Jesus. Poets’ Corner has its own magnetism, with monuments to creative geniuses including Shakespeare, the Bronte sisters, and William Blake, and the graves of several more including Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Dickens, and Rudyard Kipling.

The abbey has an even larger collection of royal graves and monuments, including Henry VII who built the Lady Chapel, and Elizabeth I who did so much to develop the Church of England as a standalone entity. She is buried on the north side of the Lady Chapel, with signs directing you to her tomb. Elizabeth’s half-sister and predecessor Mary I, who reintroduced Catholicism during her five-year reign, is buried with her. The two were at opposite ends of the spectrum theologically and had many religious opponents executed. Yet an inscription on Elizabeth’s tomb says (in Latin): “Partners both in throne and grave, here we two sisters rest, Elizabeth and Mary, in the hope of one resurrection.” Fewer executions might have increased their chances – yet sedated by the warm glow of Christian unity, I managed to avoid analysing any of this too deeply.

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St Margaret’s Church

There is a second church just outside Westminster Abbey on the left as you walk towards the main entrance from Parliament Square. This was built by the monks in the 11th century to minister tolay people living nearby. It was almost entirely rebuilt in the late 15th century. It remained an independent parish church until 1972, serving the tiny population which lives in this part of London, but is now under the control of the abbey. It is mainly used for parliamentary services – a sort of parish church for politicians. It was closed when I finally left Westminster Abbey, but I would dearly love to see if it has a confessional.

Directions

Westminster Abbey, Parliament Square, London SW1P 3JX

www.westminster-abbey.org

W3W: pills.minute.elite

GPS: 51.4997N 0.1273W

Westminster London Underground station 300m

The abbey’s main entrance is onParliament Square. It opens Mon–Fri 9:30 am–3:30 pm (Weds 6 pm), Sat 9 am–3 pm (Sep–Aprclosing at 1 pm). Tickets are £23 for adults, £ 20 for concessions, £10 for children 6–16 (under 6s free). Prices are lower for tickets purchased online.