In addition to the general admission and Queen’s Jubilee Galleries tickets, I also had a ticket for a special Medieval Monastery Tour. This was a private, small group tour emphasizing the period when Westminster Abbey was truly a Medieval Monastery. It showcased the early history of the building and the oldest parts of it. I had a little time before the tour began, so I sat down on a chair in the area where the tour was to begin and relaxed for a bit.
Westminster Abbey was a Benedictine monastery. The first twelve monks, who wore black habits, were brought to Westminster in about 960 AD by Saint Dunstan, the Bishop of London. Since then the number of monks varied between about 30 to 60. But only 24 were left when Henry VIII dissolved the monastery in 1540. No trace of the first building remains above ground.
Consecrated in 1065, King Edward the Confessor built a new Abbey on the marshy site called Thorney Island, surrounded by tributaries of the Tyburn River. Only the Undercroft and the Pyx Chamber remain from this version of the Abbey, although there are foundations below the nave and the apse from this period.
In 1245 Henry III began rebuilding much of the Abbey in the Gothic style. Some of the monastic buildings he included, such as the Chapter House, have survived intact. Others have been repurposed. The dormitory was divided into the Abbey Library and the Great Hall of Westminster School. The Garden is still there and can be visited by the public. Part of the Infirmary now forms the Little Cloister. This is private. The monastic cellarer’s building has been converted into a café.
Our tour began in the Nave and the Quire and was led by one of the Abbey’s historians. In the Nave, she pointed out the story of the Abbey in its stained-glass windows. She also pointed out the spot where the styles of the Abbey Henry III rebuilt and the parts of the Abbey Richard II rebuilt change somewhat abruptly. Richard II had been crowned in the Abbey in 1377 when he was only ten years old. He set about rebuilding the North Entrance and parts of the Nave.
We were allowed to take seats in the Quire while we were given more information about the Abbey and the lives of the monks there. The Verger Tour has been the only other time that I have been able to sit in the Quire. I kind of wanted to sing something, but I refrained.
We visited the High Altar and the Lady Chapel, which I talked about more in the first part of my visit to Westminster Abbey. On our way along the South Ambulatory towards Poet’s Corner, we came across a chest in a niche that our guide pointed out to us. This tomb chest was built with Cosmatesque work like the floor in front of the High Altar and some of the Royal tombs in the area around Edward the Confessor’s shrine. There was one piece remaining imbedded on the top. Although there is some debate about whose tomb it is, the identity that makes the most sense to me is that of King Sebert of the East Saxons and his wife, Ethelgoda. He died in roughly 616 AD but was moved to this spot in 1308. That this would have been the tomb of a king would mean that it would be deserving of being made of Purbeck Marble with a Tournai Black Marble slab on top and inlaid with tesserae and opus sectile of porphyry. Just saying.
In Poet’s Corner, our guide pointed out some relatively recently uncovered wall paintings and a staircase that used to go to the monk’s dormitory. She also pointed out Chaucer’s tomb which had much more of a crowd around it than when I went by it earlier in the day.
Then we headed into the Cloisters towards the Chapter House. The East Cloister was where, on the Thursday before Easter, the Abbot used to wash the feet of the thirteen elderly men, kissed their feet and distributed the Maundy alms. The wide benches at the northern end of the cloister were where this took place.
Next to the entrance to the Chapter House is a staircase which used to be the day stairs to the dormitory. Now it leads to the library. When it was the dormitory, it was a very large room. By the 14th century it had been divided into cubicles with curtains to ensure privacy. Since many monks had private quarters elsewhere, only some of them slept in the dormitory. They weren’t allowed a fire, so they needed to bundle up in the colder months.
In the passage leading to the Chapter House is the oldest door in Britain. In 2005 a detailed study of the door showed that the tree from which it was made was felled after 1032 and that the door was constructed sometime in the 1050s. This was during the reign of Edward the Confessor, who built the Norman Abbey.
The Chapter House was a meeting place for the monks to gather with the abbot to pray, read from the Rule of St Benedict, and discuss the day’s business. It was part of Henry III’s rebuilding of the Abbey and was likely begun in 1246 and completed around 1255. It had seating for up to 80 monks. Many of the wall paintings, depicting scenes from the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation, still remain in many of the arches.
The Chapter House was also the place where the forerunner of the English Parliament, the King’s Great Council, assembled in 1257. Later on, in the 14th century, the House of Commons met there for a few years before using the Abbey Refectory for meetings.
When leaving the Chapter House and turning to the left when back in the East Cloister, the Pyx Chamber is the next room on the left. This is the oldest surviving room in the Abbey.
This low vaulted room is part of the Undercroft, underneath the monks’ dormitory, and was built in about 1070. The original entrance was through the oldest door (which was how I remember getting into it back in the 1980s). It contains a couple of medieval chests dating to the 13th and 14th centuries.
The Pyx chamber takes its name from wooden boxes in which silver and gold pieces were kept secure to await the “Trial of the Pyx”. This involved melting down the measured silver content as a way of showing that the coinage was pure. This was established as a practice in 1281. The stone table against the east wall was used to test the silver.
When I visited the Abbey back in the 80s, we were not only able to enter the Pyx Chamber through the Oldest Door, but we could also walk around in the room. Now there is a public viewing platform at the current entrance and going down into the room itself is no longer allowed. Also, when I visited in the 80s and 90s, the main part of the Abbey, as well as the Undercroft (which was originally the common room for the monks and was the Abbey museum beginning in 1908) were open free of charge. It was only necessary to pay if you wanted to see the royal tombs. That included the Shrine of Edward the Confessor which was closed to public visits in 1997. Since then it can only be seen as part of the special Verger’s Tour.
After our visit to the Pyx Chamber, our guide told us that she was taking us to see the Jerusalem Chamber in the Dean’s Residence. This is not open to the public and can only be seen on this particular tour.
The medieval house of the Abbots of Westminster was called Cheyneygates. The Jerusalem Chamber was added to this structure sometime between 1377 and 1386. This was in the reign of Richard II and has a crowned letter R carved in the ceiling (which is original). In the Middle Ages it was quite common to give names to rooms. The Jerusalem Chamber is entered through the Jericho Parlour which was added sometime between 1500 and 1532.
Photography wasn’t allowed in the Dean’s Residence, so the photo I have included here is from the internet. The stonework around the fireplace is original, but the paneling in the room was added in the 19th century. The tapestries are mostly 17th and 18th century. We were seated at the table. I sat next to the fireplace with my back to the window.
This was where, in 1413, King Henry IV was taken after suffering a stroke while praying at the Shrine of Edward the Confessor. As he was lying by the fire, he regained consciousness and asked where he was. He was told “Jerusalem”. It had been prophesied that he would die in Jerusalem. And so he did. In Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part II, Prince Henry tries on the crown in this room while his father is dying.
It was also in this room in 1624 where the marriage of the future King Charles I to Henrietta Maria of France was arranged. The coffins of several people, including Sir Isaac Newton, were lain here prior to their funerals in the Abbey. Some of the most important historic meetings held in this room were for the committees engaged in writing the Authorized King James Version of the Bible in 1611, the Revised Version in 1870, the New English Bible in 1961, and the Revised English Bible in 1989.
After we finished our tour in the Jerusalem Chamber, I headed back out through the Cloisters and to the area where the painting of Richard II and the Coronation Chair are kept near the main entrance to the Abbey. The painting is of Richard at the age of ten as he was being coronated. It is the earliest known portrait of an English king and dates to 1390. Although he was crowned king in 1377, this portrait wasn’t painted until nine years before he was deposed.
The Coronation Chair was made by order of King Edward I to enclose the famous Stone of Scone, which he brought from Scotland to the Abbey in 1296. He wanted all English monarchs to be crowned using the stone on which all Scottish monarchs were crowned. The Stone of Scone was finally returned to Scotland in 1996. It was kept at Edinburgh Castle until 2024 when it was moved to a museum in Perth.
On the way back to the hotel, I stopped off at the gift shop for Westminster Abbey as well as the gift shop for Parliament. I also passed by Downing Street, Banqueting House, the Horseguards, Old Scotland Yard, the Admiralty Arch, and Trafalgar Square. A couple of small bottles of wine were waiting for me in my hotel room. Since I didn’t need to go anywhere that night, I just had a quiet dinner in my room while sipping a couple glasses of that wine.
Next time – Day One of A Big Bus Hop On Hop Off Tour
