WestminsterAbbey
WestminsterAbbey is a fine Gothic building, which stands opposite the Houses ofParliament. It is the work of many hands and different ages. The oldest part ofthe building dates from the eighth century it was a monastery – the West Minster.In the 11th century Edward the Confessor after years spent in Francefounded a great Norman. In 200 years HenryIII decided to pull down the Norman Abbey and build a more beautiful one afterthe style then balling in France. Since then the Abbeyremains the most French of all English Gothic churches, higher than any otherEnglish church (103 feet) and much narrower. The towers were built in1735-1740. One of the greater glories of the Abbey is the Chapel of Henry VII,with its delicate fan-vauting. The Chapel is of stoneand glass, so wonderfully cut and sculptured that it seems unreal. It containsan interesting collection of swords and standards of the Knights of the Bath.
TheAbbey is famous for its stained glass. Since the far-off time of William theConqueror WestminsterAbbey has been the crowning place of the kings and queens of England. The Abbey issometimes compared with a mausoleum, because there are tombs and memorials ofalmost all English monarchs, many statesmen, famous scientists, writers andmusicians.
Ifyou go past the magnificent tombstones of kings and queens, some made of goldand precious stones, past the gold-and-silver banners of the Order of theGarter, which are hanging from the ceiling, you will come to Poets Corner.There many of the greatest writers are buried: Samuel Johnson, Charles Dickens,Alfred Tennyson, Thomas Hardy and Rudyard Kipling. Here too, though thesewriters are not buried in Westminster Abbey, are memorials to WilliamShakespeare and Johnson Milton, Burns and Byron, Walter Scott, WilliamMakepeace Thackeray and the great American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Herein Abbey there is also the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, a symbol of thenation’s grief. The inscription on the tomb reads: Beneath this stone rests thebody of a British Warrior unknown by name or rank brought from Franceto lie among the mostillustrious of the land… In the Royal Air Force Chapel there is a monument tothose who died during the Battle of Britain, the famous and decisive air battle over the territory ofBritain in the Second World War.