X-Nico

34 unusual facts about Westminster Abbey


Bimetallic strip

Harrison's invention is recognized in the memorial to him in Westminster Abbey, England.

Clara Novello

In 1833, she performed at the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester and in 1834 she performed at the Royal Musical Festival at Westminster Abbey.

David Burden

On retirement from the Army he became Receiver General of Westminster Abbey.

Duke Ellington's Sacred Concerts

It was premiered at Westminster Abbey in London, United Kingdom on October 24, 1973 and released on LP in 1975 but has only been issued on CD as part of the 24 disc The Duke Ellington Centennial Edition: The Complete RCA Victor Recordings (1927-1973) collection.

Edward Puttick

He was also one of New Zealand's representatives at the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in Westminster Abbey.

Four Candles

At Barker's memorial service in Westminster Abbey, the cross was accompanied up the aisle by four candles instead of the usual two.

Girdle of Thomas

There were a number of supposed original girdle relics across the ancient Christian world, partly conflated with "tertiary" relics of belts that had touched the supposed genuine belt - Elizabeth of York, queen of Henry VII of England, bought one of these from a friar to help her pregnancy, and there was an "original" at Westminster Abbey in London.

Handel Commemoration

The Handel festival or ‘Commemoration’ took place in Westminster Abbey in 1784, to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of George Frideric Handel in 1759.

Harriett Abrams

She notably sang annually in the Handel Commemoration in Westminster Abbey in 1784 and annually in the Handel festivals from 1784-1787.

Homer Hulbert

Hulbert's tombstone reads “I would rather be buried in Korea than in Westminster Abbey.”

I Hear You Calling Me

Harold Lake had been a great friend of Harry Dearth, the ballad singer, from when they had been in the choir school of Westminster Abbey together.

Isaac Van Wart

André at his trial had insisted the men were mere brigands; sympathy for him remained in some more aristocratic American quarters (and grew to legend in England, where he was buried in Westminster Abbey).

Joan Gideon Loten

In the London Westminster Abbey an impressive monument, made by Thomas Banks, was erected in his memory in 1795 (see illustration).

John Windebank

John Windebank (1618–1704) a doctor of medicine who was admitted an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1680 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Laurent Delvaux

In Brussels he was a student of Denis Plumier from Antwerp, he followed Plumier to London in 1719 and collaborated with him on the funerary monument of John Sheffield, duke of Buckingham (1721-22, London, Westminster Abbey).

LMS-Patriot Project

After a public poll, the new Patriot locomotive will be named The Unknown Warrior, whose tomb is located in Westminster Abbey.

Microcrystalline wax

Microcrystalline wax was used in the final phases of the restoration of the Cosmati pavement, Westminster Abbey, London.

Octavius Wigram

At the coronation of King George IV at Westminster Abbey in 1820, Wigram was on duty, guarding one of the doors of the Abbey, when the new king's estranged wife Queen Caroline tried unsuccessfully to enter the Abbey by force.

Paul F. Bradshaw

He is also a priest-vicar of Westminster Abbey, an honorary canon of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Indiana, a member of the Church of England Liturgical Commission.

Peter boat

In legend, the peter boat's origins lie with the boats used to ferry passengers to and from St. Peter's Abbey, the Saxon predecessor to Westminster Abbey in London.

Pity About the Abbey

The play imagined that Westminster Abbey, one of the most significant religious sites in the United Kingdom, was demolished to make way for a by-pass.

Prosopography

Barbara Harvey's Living and Dying in England 1100–1540: The Monastic Experience (1993) is a prosopography that draws a group picture of monastic life, centred on the aggregate experience of the monks of Westminster Abbey.

Rosina Raisbeck

After leaving Covent Garden in 1953, she sang frequently in concert, and was one of the huge choir at Westminster Abbey that sang during the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

Royal Command

The Royal Family, who are watching everything on television from their hospital beds, are pleased with what is happening, until the Goodies decide to re-enact the Coronation, in Westminster Abbey, with the genuine Archbishop of Canterbury, so that Tim will be crowned as the Queen and the Goodies will be the new "Royal Family".

Saint Louis Abbey

Rev. Columba Cary-Elwes, OSB, an author, monastic leader and former titular Abbot of Westminster, was the founding prior (1955–1967) of the Abbey.

Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise

There senior officers selected one to be carried to Westminster Abbey to be re-buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior.

Scone Palace

When Edward I of England carried off the Stone of Scone to Westminster Abbey in 1296, the Coronation Chair that still stands in the abbey was specially made to fit over it.

Stephen Thorne

He has given many poetry readings on radio, television and tape and in venues from Westminster Abbey to various pubs.

Sword of Stalingrad

Before its presentation, the sword was exhibited around the United Kingdom like a religious icon, including at Westminster Abbey, which formed a pivotal scene in Evelyn Waugh's wartime trilogy Sword of Honour.

Theophilus Harrington

The supposed quote from Harrington was engraved on a plaque which was installed in Westminster Abbey by British abolitionists.

Wacs lyrical

Wacs Lyrical has hosted various events, such as a 3 km charity run on Dean's Yard, in the precincts of Westminster Abbey in aid of WaterAid.

Walter Buckmaster

Westminster Abbey 'BANNER OF ST EDWARD THE CONFESSOR' This was designed by Christopher Webb and presented in 1945 by Eulalie Buckmaster in memory of her father.

Westminster Abbey

# 14 November 1973: Princess Anne, only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II was married to Captain Mark Phillips

Zachary Macaulay

A memorial to him was erected in Westminster Abbey, depicting the figure of a kneeling slave with the motto ‘Am I not a Man and a Brother?'


Bishop of Sherborne

The current Bishop of Sherborne is the Right Reverend Dr Graham Kings, PhD, MA(Oxon), DipTh, who was consecrated in a special service at Westminster Abbey on 24 June 2009 by the Most Reverend Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.

Cambridge House

After Palmerston's death at Brocket Hall in Hertfordshire in 1865, his body was taken to Cambridge House from which his funeral procession departed to Westminster Abbey.

Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode

He died at Queen Square, Westminster, on 5 April 1799, and was buried on 13 April near his mother, in the east cloister of Westminster Abbey.

Community of the Sisters of the Church

Their most visible presence in recent years was when two sisters, one in Reeboks, sat in the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey during the wedding of TRH The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on 29 April 2012.

Frances Folsom Cleveland Preston

On March 14, 1918, at Westminster Abbey, she married Captain William Sidney Bence Bosanquet of the Coldstream Guards of the British Army.

Henry Grove

His grandfather was the ejected vicar of Pinhoe, Devon, whose son, a Taunton upholsterer, married a sister of John Rowe, ejected from a lectureship at Westminster Abbey; Henry was the youngest of fourteen children, most of whom died young.

Jewel House

Although a treasury had been found in the Tower of London from the earliest times (as in the sub-crypt of St. John's Chapel in the White Tower), from 1255 there was a separate Jewel House for state crowns and regalia, though not older crowns and regalia, which remained at Westminster Abbey.

John Philips

A monument in his memory was erected in 1710 by Simon Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt in Westminster Abbey, between the monuments to Chaucer and Drayton, with the motto Honos erit huic quoque pomo from the title page of Cyder.

John Sanctuary Nicholson

In In 1921, he was elected the Member of Parliament for the Westminster Abbey constituency in a by-election following the death of the incumbent MP William Burdett-Coutts.

Joseph Burtt

Burtt began working in the public service in 1832 at the Chapter House in Westminster Abbey under Sir Francis Palgrave, and in 1840 became a member of staff at the Public Record Office.

London Bach Society

By 1985 the development of Baroque instruments and the technique of the players was such that the choir was able to perform the St Matthew Passion with a complete orchestra of period instruments and this they did for the opening concert of the 1985 Bath International Music Festival in Wells Cathedral and later in 1987 at Westminster Abbey, the latter being the last time Steinitz conducted the work.

New Jersey Folk Festival

In the Bayeux Tapestry of the 1070s, originally of the Bayeux Cathedral (Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Bayeux) and now exhibited at Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux in Bayeux, Normandy, there is a depiction of a man installing a cock on Westminster Abbey.

Parliament Square

Buildings looking upon the square include the churches Westminster Abbey and St Margaret's, Westminster, the Middlesex Guildhall which is the seat of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, Government Offices Great George Street serving HM Treasury and HM Revenue and Customs, and Portcullis House.

Paul Mealor

Mealor's motet, a setting of Ubi Caritas et Amor, was commissioned by Prince William for his marriage to Catherine Middleton at Westminster Abbey on 29 April 2011, when it was sung by the Choirs of Westminster Abbey and Her Majesty's Chapel Royal conducted by James O'Donnell.

Peterborough Cathedral

In 1587, the body of Mary, Queen of Scots, was initially buried here after her execution at nearby Fotheringhay Castle, but it was later removed to Westminster Abbey on the orders of her son, King James I of England.

Prince's Stone

It was also described by Jean Bodin’s in his Treatise on Republican Government (1576) as "unrivaled in the entire world", although there is evidence that the Stone of Scone (now kept beneath King Edward's Chair in Westminster Abbey, although formerly in the ruins of Scone Abbey, Scotland) was used in a similar fashion.

RAF Chapel

At the eastern end of Westminster Abbey in the magnificent Lady Chapel built by King Henry VII is the RAF Chapel dedicated to the men of the Royal Air Force who died in the Battle of Britain between July and October 1940.

Recumbent effigy

Some of the greatest examples of the recumbent effigy in Westminster Abbey in London, Saint Peter's in Rome, Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice (twenty-five Doges), and the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence.

Relic of the Holy Blood

The relic was sent from the Patriarch of Jerusalem to Henry III of England in 1247, where it was then stored in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in London, before being paraded through the streets by the King and laid to rest in Westminster Abbey.

Richard Elford

Elford was sworn a gentleman of the Chapel Royal on 2 August 1702, and was also appointed lay vicar at St Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey.

Scouting in West Midlands

Since then it has had 34 Royal performances, appearing in events and venues such as Westminster Abbey, Windsor Castle, St Paul's Cathedral, the Royal Tournament, Wembley Stadium, Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, London's Guild Hall, The Lord Mayor's Show, Horse Guards Parade, Coventry Cathedral, the Spalding Flower Parade, London's Easter Parade, and the Jersey Battle of Flowers.

Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels

A series of riddles and clues lead Watson on a hunt for inscribed jewels hidden at several famous sites across the city, including Westminster Abbey, Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, London Bridge, and Big Ben.

Sir Francis Blake, 1st Baronet, of Twizell Castle

In his will Blake left £60 for the creation of a monument to his son in the West Cloister of Westminster Abbey.

Valmadonna Trust Library

A well-preserved set of the Babylonian Talmud (1519–23) designed by a panel of scholars and codifying many aspects of how the Talmud is laid out, printed in Venice by Daniel Bomberg; Lunzer acquired this in 1980 from the collection of Westminster Abbey in exchange for a 900-year-old copy of the Abbey’s original Charter, and supporting endowments, fulfilling a 25 year dream.

Young Adelaide Voices

The Concert Choir has given recitals in such places as Westminster Abbey, St Martin-in-the-Fields and St Paul's Cathedral, and even Disneyland in America.