The Queen’s funeral will be held at Westminster Abbey on Monday 19 September, which will be a Bank Holiday in the UK.
Westminster Abbey’s beautiful, Gothic structure was built on the site of a seventh-century church under the orders of King Henry III in 1245 and is the traditional place for coronations and royal funerals. Indeed, every English and British coronation since that of William the Conqueror in 1066 has been conducted at the Abbey. Seventeen royal weddings have also been held here, including the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh’s in 1947 and William, Prince of Wales to Catherine, Princess of Wales in 2011. The earliest royal marriage ceremony held on this site was between King Henry I and Matilda of Scotland in 1100.
Until the 1700s, most kings and queens were buried in the Abbey. Since then, other notable figures have been interred or commemorated here, including Geoffrey Chaucer, Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin.
Queen Elizabeth II will be buried in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, alongside her husband, sister and parents.
Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster became World Heritage Sites in 1987 in recognition of their cultural heritage.
Until the royal funeral on Monday, the Abbey is closed for tourist visits but welcomes those who would like to visit for prayer or reflection.
Photo credit: © Juan Salmoral (https://tinyurl.com/v7u55bwz), CC BY-ND 2.0