Who first built Westminster Abbey?

Westminster Abbey in central London has been the site of coronations, weddings and burials of English and then British royalty for nearly 1,000 years.

Who first built Westminster Abbey?

Westminster Abbey was first built on the site of a monastery in the 11th century by King Edward the Confessor.

The origins of the Abbey date to the 960s or early 970s, when Saint Dunstan and King Edgar installed a community of Benedictine monks on the site.

King Edward the Confessor began rebuilding St Peter’s Abbey to provide himself with a royal burial church between 1042 and 1052.

It was the first church in England built in the Romanesque style. The building was completed around 1060 and was consecrated on December 28, 1065, only a week before Edward’s death on January 5, 1066.

A week later, King Edward was buried in the church and, nine years later, his wife Edith was buried alongside him.

Construction of the present church began in 1245 under the auspices of King Henry III.

Up to 1760, 13 kings of England and four reigning queens including Elizabeth I, were buried there.

William the Conqueror was crowned in the Abbey on Christmas Day, 1066. The coronation of every monarch since then has taken place there, except for Edward V, who was never crowned, and Edward VIII, who abdicated before he could be.

On Monday, September 19, the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, who died on September 8, 2022 in Balmoral, Scotland, at the age of 96 was held at the Westminster Abbey. She was also married and crowned in the Abbey.