Westminster Abbey – the alabaster palace

A personal view of a public place

What struck me almost as soon as I entered Westminster Abbey via the north door was that the east end of the abbey, near the chapels in the crossing, is cluttered and messy.

Monuments are shoved in wherever they’ll fit, or not, overlaying others, and huge constructions are partially obscured while obscuring smaller monuments in their turn. The chapels of St Michael, St Andrew and St John the Evangelist in particular resemble a random collection of funerary sculptures that no one wants to throw out but has no idea what to do with. 

Stuff - the lion looks less than impressed

So much of the abbey feels like that. The nave aisles are filled with stuff; monuments are hemmed in with tables, ropes and stands, stacks of chairs, unused signs, water bottles and cardboard boxes. Few areas are clear, as if some old lady just can’t bear to throw anything away and hides it in corners she hopes no one will look in. And that’s without the monuments themselves competing for space. I wonder if Edward III has his hand raised as an admonishment to someone trying to dump something on top of him.

But when you get used to it, you feel the same wonder as you do wandering around a junk shop, finding treasures you hadn’t imagined or expected. There is such overt magnificence, each sculptor and architect trying to out-do each other for grandeur and size. It becomes a game to find the largest and most garish Tudor effigy. There are so many, such as the great marble collections of figures of the 18th and 19th centuries, that they tend to blur into one after half an hour.

Every visitor will have a favourite. Whether that’s the great tomb of Elizabeth I, or the plain, partially ruinous shrine to St Edward the Confessor; the tiny little monument of William of Windsor and Blanche of the Tower, who both died before their first birthday. A personal favourite is the sumptuous tomb of Antoine-Philippe d’Orleans, an exiled French prince who died in England in 1807 aged just 31. The parallel may be said to be the equally gorgeous effigy of John of Eltham, deceptively perfect and glossy still, nearly 700 years after its creation. 

Prince Antoine-Philippe
The hair and crown are beautifully sculpted

John of Eltham, his head turned towards his brother:
one a fairy tale and the other a legend

So stuffed with historical artefacts, Westminster Abbey straddles the thin line between being a museum of the dead and being a living religious building. On the one count, so little is labelled that one has to rely on one’s Latin to translate where the monument itself has an inscription that survives. But churches aren’t museums and so are not labelled as carefully. But, how can you pay your respects to those interred in the abbey if you don’t know whose monument is whose, even if you are looking for them? There is no comprehensive list that I can find that includes the location and identification of each monument.

The best floorplan online, but far from complete:
area O is the chapel of St Edmund but shows only 5 tombs
and omits William and Blanche and all those around the walls

It is not a spiritual experience, and one risks tomb fatigue.

And then, something happens… 

The magnificent sarcophagus of Edward III lies opposite St Edmund’s chapel. A very worn lip of stone guards the entrance through a doorway in an openwork screen that separates the chapel from the ambulatory. For all the reasons above, I had no idea who was in there, just more garish Tudor tombs and anonymous marbles. But I was drawn to two of them—the perfect effigy of a knight in a long cotte with his legs crossed in the fashion of the thirteenth century. There was nothing to identify it, even to suggest if it was a genuinely old tomb, or a facsimile as is the lovely effigy of Antoine-Philippe. The marble knight is lying flat, but his head is turned slightly to look across at the Chapel of St Edward the Confessor. 

Next to it, a tiny coffer tomb with two miniature figures on top, also carved from marble. Again, any identifying features have long been lost to history. By chance, I discovered that the best photo of Edward III’s tomb opposite was taken from between these two. With no one in sight to ask, I carried on with my visit and it wasn’t until I came home that I discovered who was in these monuments—John of Eltham, beloved brother of Edward III, and two of his children, William and Blanche. A little family group, separated by social status, joined forever by the love of a brother and father who kept them as close as he could.

A tomb of innocents
Each figure is around 20 inches long

Sadly, little else contributed to a sense of spirituality, not in that area of the abbey. 

And this is where you find the abbey is split into two distinct areas—the eastern end where the tombs congregate like Arsenal fans and the west end, the open nave, where it begins to feel like a church again. This so public space is the only place you can say a prayer, to light a candle to a loved one, or for your own needs and desires. 

There is also a little box where you can leave a card with a request for a prayer to be said in the St Edward shrine chapel. I considered leaving one for Edward III and his little family group, but, on reflection, Edward has proved himself capable of looking after his own family.

The effigy of Edward III with his right hand raised,
taken from the space between the tombs of
John of Eltham and the children through the openwork screen