Westminster Abbey (The Collegiate Church of St Peter)

Westminster Abbey (The Collegiate Church of St Peter)

Abbey church. The building embodies work spanning nearly a millennium. Edward the Confessor's church dates to around 1050–65. Major rebuilding was begun by Henry III in 1245, with the chancel, transepts and five bays of the nave completed by 1269. A new nave and west front were constructed between 1375 and 1400 by Henry Yevele, the master mason, and completed in 1506, excluding the upper part of the west towers. Henry VII's Chapel was begun as a new Lady Chapel in 1503 and completed as a chantry chapel around 1512, probably by Robert and William Virtue. The west towers were added between 1735 and 1740 by Hawksmoor. Major restorations occurred during the 18th and 19th centuries, carried out by Wren, Henry Keene, James Wyatt, Benjamin Wyatt, Blore, Sir George Gilbert Scott and J. C. Pearson, who served as Surveyors to the Fabric. "Anti-scrape" preservation principles were introduced by Micklethwaite and Lethaby.

The building is constructed of Reigate stone, with Huddlestone stone used for Henry VII's Chapel.

Externally, the Abbey displays geometrical Gothic, notably French in its plan with an aisled eleven-bay nave, transepts and chancel featuring an ambulatory and radiating chapels. The height of the vault with its two tiers of flying buttresses is also distinctly French in character. However, the design is specifically English in its distinguishing feature of a full gallery instead of a triforium, and in the way Yevele's nave respectfully continues the style of Henry III's work. Yevele's Perpendicular Gothic appears on the west front and porch, which closely resembles his Westminster Hall design. Henry VII's Chapel displays boldly modelled Late Perpendicular detailing. The west towers feature Hawksmoor's distinctive blending of Gothic verticality with Baroque details.

The interior contains Purbeck marble piers and shafting, and quadripartite vaulting with ridge rib and bosses. Transverse and tierceron ribs appear in the nave, with Perpendicular details to the bosses in Yevele's work. Stained glass includes a few reset 13th-century fragments, otherwise dating from the 15th, 16th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Cosmati pavements are present in the feretory and presbytery. The Abbey contains exceptional furnishings and a unique collection of monuments and sculpture. The Abbey holds the significance of both the English St Denis and Reims combined—a unique embodiment of church, state and crown, and serving as the national mausoleum.

Historically, Westminster Abbey was the scene of protests by suffragettes from the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), the militant organisation founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903. In June 1914, suffragettes placed a bomb under the coronation chair in St Edward the Confessor's Chapel, damaging the chair. Suffragettes also carried out "Prayers for Prisoners" protests in the Abbey during the campaign for women's suffrage. These disruptive rather than militant forms of protest involved women attending services in groups and quietly interrupting by chanting "God Save Mrs Pankhurst" and praying for other suffragette prisoners. Services at the Abbey were interrupted several times in 1913 and 1914, and in one of the last militant protests a woman chained herself to her chair when the Archbishop of Canterbury was preaching; both she and the chair were carried out by vergers.