Westminster Abbey http://www.westminster-abbey.org/

OPTIONAL VISIT: Tiffany Circle ambassador, Lady Angela Lamport, kindly invites you to attend the Evensong service on Thursday 27 February The service is at 5pm. is about a 10 minute taxi ride from the Savoy. This is purely optional, but please let your staff representative know if you are interested in attending. Transportation is not being provided.

General Information

Welcome to Westminster Abbey! I hope to be able to welcome you to Westminster Abbey and pray your experience here will be a blessing to you and encourage you in the pilgrimage of life.

Westminster Abbey is a living Church, part of the : where almighty God is worshipped daily, continuing a 1400 year tradition in this place. Every day (except Good Friday and Holy Saturday) the Eucharist is celebrated at 8.00 a.m. There are twenty-eight services every week, which all are welcome to attend, whether you are Anglican (Episcopalian), or of another Christian Church or of another faith, or seeking or doubting. The Abbey’s world-famous choir sings at one or more of our daily services.

Westminster Abbey is one of the world’s greatest churches, a designated World Heritage Site and ‘Royal Peculiar’, which means the is directly answerable to the . The coronation of Kings and Queens has taken place here since 1066, and many of the nation’s Kings and Queens are buried in the Abbey. Principal among them is St Edward the Confessor, King of England from 1042 to 1066, whose shrine is at the heart of the Abbey. Also buried or memorialised here are over 3,000 great men and women from almost every century of these islands’ history: statesmen and politicians, lawyers, warriors, clerics, writers, artists and musicians.

In the Abbey precincts you can visit St Margaret’s Church (the Church of the House of Commons), the Great and Little Cloisters, the Chapter House and Museum, and College Garden, the oldest garden in England. The Abbey Library and Muniments Room offer research facilities by appointment. Also here are , strongly associated with the Abbey, and Westminster Abbey Choir School, which educates the Abbey’s choristers.

History Westminster Abbey is steeped in more than a thousand years of history. Benedictine monks first came to this site in the middle of the tenth century, establishing a tradition of daily worship which continues to this day.

The Abbey has been the coronation church since 1066 and is the final resting place of seventeen monarchs. The present church, begun by Henry III in 1245, is one of the most important Gothic buildings in the country, with the medieval shrine of an Anglo-Saxon saint still at its heart.

A treasure house of paintings, stained glass, pavements, textiles and other artefacts, Westminster Abbey is also the place where some of the most significant people in the nation's history are buried or commemorated. Taken as a whole the tombs and memorials comprise the most significant single collection of monumental sculpture anywhere in the United Kingdom.

The Library and Muniment Room houses the important (and growing) collections of archives, printed books and manuscripts belonging to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, providing a centre for their study and for research into all aspects of the Abbey's long and varied history.

The Very Reverend John R Hall BA HonDD HonDTheol FRSA HonFCollT,

The Very Reverend Dr was installed as the 38th Dean of Westminster on 2 December 2006. The Dean oversees the spiritual life of the of St Peter Westminster, better known as Westminster Abbey, and gives leadership to the Abbey community, which includes 200 staff and 400 volunteers. Since the Abbey is a Royal Peculiar, the Dean is responsible to the alone.