The Abbey

I'm four days behind in describing travels in and around London. Coming to the realization that I won't have enough time to cover everything until I fly home, I've decided just to blog about a few highlights as they occur to me (you did know that the word "blog" could be used as a verb, didn't you?).

On Monday, I entered Westminster Cathedral for the first time. I'd traveled around the place many times now but had been waiting for Dianna to join me before going in. We arrived early, just after the opening at 10 o'clock, in the hopes of finding a lessened crowd--those hopes were soon dashed. Passing the 15th-century church of St. Elizabeth, we could see the crowd four abreast stretching about 60 feet back from the north portal. A little disappointing, but what a portal! The great, gothic arch extended 30 feet upwards to where a stone stature of Christ was surrounded by a peaked gathering of angels playing ancient instruments. Admission is £10 (almost exactly $20) per adult, and the guided tour is another £5--a total of $30 apiece for the whole fee--pretty pricey. We paid our money and entered inside. Dianna's first comment was, "My gosh," followed by "What a clobbered up mess!" What she meant was that on first looking up, the rose window in the south transept is stunningly beautiful (that's the "My gosh"). One the other hand, the press of human flesh almost overwhelms the senses. Additionally, what should have been the beauty of a long, slender gothic nave was obscured by the countless--literally countless--memorials which seem to fill every possible space available in the church (thus we get to the "What a clobbered up mess!").

More than 3,300 people are buried in Westminster Abbey, and their interments are marked by everything from a simple diamond-shaped stone to a large stone scultpure 30 feet high on a base larger than my living room at home. Additionally, the war dead from every English conflict since the 1600s have some type of rememberance in the church. These do not include, by the way, the individual statuary and plaques mounted to honor the deeds of the individual dead--the ship captain who died just as his vessel overcame a French frigate at heavy odds or the general who fell in a cavalry charge during the Crimean War. Sculptors, hoping for a sizable fee from the families I'm sure, frequently represented these fallen heroes in the form of Greek gods clad in martial finery struggling against centaurs or some other such fanciful creatures. Some of the side chapels are so choked with busts covered with laural, angels with outstretched wings, or soldiers with sword in their raised fists that visitors duck and weave their way around, under, and through--often taking several minutes just to make their slow way into and out of a small area.

Happily, our guide, a church verger named Benjamin, took our group into the enclosed, central alter for an orientation. A verger, by the way, is an Anglican Church official who is responsible for leading all processionals and for assembling the Eucharist materials. To my great joy, we gathered around the tomb of Edward the Confessor, an early English saint and the king who in 1065 built the first cathedral on this site. Edward's tomb was a primary site for pilgrimage in England until Thomas a Becket's maryterdom at Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. Surrounding this alter were the crypts of Henry III, the king who had the current gothic cathedral built on this location in the 13th century, and Henry V, England's great warrior king and subject of Shakespeare's play of that name. Benjamin also made touring the cathedral a little easier by clearing our way into such tomb areas as the chapels where Mary and Elizabeth I, the daughters of Henry VIII are buried together, and where Mary, Queen of Scots, is buried.

Certainly for me, one of the highlights was the so-called "Poet's Corner" which is not actually a corner--it is simply the south chapel. A statue of a reclining Shakespeare dominates one end--even though he's not buried there. Several great writers are likewise honored, but not interred, in this location. Chaucer actually is buried there--he was the first to be placed in this area, though more for his service to the king and because of his friendship with the Black Prince than because of his writing. Charles Dickens is there--against his wishes; he had actually expressed a desire to be buried in a quiet service elsewhere. The church also serves as the final resting place of many great scientists (Newton, Darwin, Faraday, and Lyell--to name a few) and composers (a towering statue of Handel and a little plaque of Ralph Vaughn Williams--one of my favorites).

Clearly, Westminister Abbey has become a ceremonial certer for the nation. You may know that it has served as the place of coronation for every English monarch since 1066 in the age Harold. However, with plaques and memorials to Churchill, Roosevelt, Monty, Eisenhower, the Korean War Dead, and a capsized tourist boat from 1989, the place feels more like a monument and less like a church. Nevertheless, Westminster is a site of considerable history--even if it is "a clobbered up mess."