Day 6: Westminster Abbey, a Good Pub, and a Dirt Nap

June 19, 2025

[Descriptive text is coming as soon as we have a time to catch up!]

This would be our last full day in London. It would also be the hottest day of our stay. (The next day would likely be hotter, but we'd be on a train north before the hottest part of the day.) Thankfully, it was still relatively dry with a refreshing breeze.

Our plan was to visit Westminster Cathedral and Abbey, try to finally find a good pub for lunch, and then play it by ear in the afternoon. We took the Tube back to Westminster, walked to the Abbey, and got into the security line to get it.

Westminster Abbey is the cathedral and adjoining monastery. Building was started on the site in the 10th century. The present gothic cathedral was begun in the 13th Century. The cathedral is where British monarchs are crowned, and many past monarchs are buried there, going all the way back to Edward the Confessor, the sainted king of the Anglo-Saxons who died 9 months before the Norman Conquest in 1066. (His successor, Harold II, was killed during the Norman Conquest at the Battle of Hastings.) The tour includes the cathedral itself and parts of the old monastery. Many royal weddings have been held at the Cathedral. It is also the burial site of over 3000 people, many prominent in British history, including Prime Ministers, statesmen, and artists. The cathedral is the site of Poet's Corner, where many writers and poets have their final resting places, including Chaucer, Dryden, Tennyson, Kipling, and numerous others. There are also numerous memorials to prominent people who are not buried in Westminster Abbey.

We spent a good part of the morning at the Cathedral. We saw the tomb of the Unknown Warrior (killed during World War I). We visited graves and memorials of British royals and courtiers. We spent a lot of time at Poet's Corner. We walked around in some of the chapels and rooms of the abbey. And we looked at some of the gardens. But after a few hours, we were hungry and decided to try one last time to find some decent pub food. We had success!

Big Ben again

Westminster Cathedral

One of the long aisles at the Cathedral

A memorial to Benjamin Britten

Memorials to the physicist James Joule and the botanist Joseph Hooker

Charles Darwin, who for some reason is still controversial, is buried at Westminster.

Memorial to Roger Bannister, first to break the 4-minute mile.

Depiction of Salus Populi Romani (Salvation of the Roman People), a Byzantine style icon of the Mother of God and the Christ child

Tomb of the Unknown Warrior

Embroidered frontal on an altar in the cathedral

Tomb of Sir Isaac Newton, perhaps the greatest physicist of all time.

Memorial to James Clerk Maxwell, the greatest physicist of the 19th Century, whose theory of electromagnetism would lead Einstein to his theory of relativity.

Memorial to George Green, mathematician and physicist

The choir leading to the high altar

Benches in the choir

The high altar

Pulpit

The Cosmati Pavement, a mosaic floor before the high altar

A depiction of a skeleton representing Death emerging from a vault to strike Lady Elizabeth Nightingale, while her husband, Joseph, attempts to ward him off, in the St. Michael's Chapel.

Tomb of King Henry III

Sir Giles Daubeney, Lord Chamberlain to Henry VII, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Arundell, located in the Chapel of St Paul

Though she died on the orders of her sister, Elizabeth I, Mary Queen of Scots is buried at Westminster

Oliver Cromwell was buried in Westminster, but his body was exhumed, beheaded, and buried in a pit. His head is buried at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge

Banners at the Henry VII Lady Chapel

Royal Air Force chapel with stained glass windows and a commemoration of the Battle of Britain

Memorial statue of the American poet Longfellow

Memorial to George Elliot

The tomb of Geoffrey Chaucer

A memorial to The Bard

Tomb of Charles Dickens

Tomb of George Frederick Handel

Memorial to John Milton

We decided to try the pub at the Sanctuary House, a hotel in Westminster near the abbey. It was an airy, welcoming place with some great food on the menu and cold beer ready to be poured. We decided to sample the meat pies. There were several in the sample with a variety of meats including beef and lamb, and some delicious sauces. It was a relaxing respite from the crowds and the afternoon heat. We didn't want to leave our seats, but we really wanted to do a little more sight seeing.