The Queen has toured the site of a new building at Westminster Abbey which aims to transform the welcome offered to millions of visitors.
Camilla is patron of the £13 million project to create the King Charles III Sacristy, which will serve as a gathering place on major state occasions and house state-of-the-art welcome, ticketing and security facilities.
After visiting the site and viewing a model of the building, she said: “I can’t wait to see the final version.”
Work is due to begin early next year and the building will be constructed on the footprint of Henry III’s medieval Great Sacristy built in the 1250s.
The Queen was met by the Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle, who, along with the architect behind the project, Ptolemy Dean, showed her some of the archaeological finds already made, including dozens of ancient burials.
Camilla appeared fascinated when the skeletons were pointed out and, after looking at one area of the site, said: “I thought I could see a bone – it’s a thigh bone.”
The development is close to the Abbey’s north transept, used as the current visitor entrance, and will allow the public to follow a path around the perimeter of the building and enter via the Abbey’s Great West Door – the ceremonial entrance used for royal weddings, funerals and coronations for centuries.
Mr Dean, the Abbey’s Surveyor of the Fabric, said: “This building will be transformational. At the moment 10% of our area in the Abbey is wasted, with storage and items all over the place.
“We’ll be able to get all of that stuff in our new building, all the detritus and visitor clutter, and people buying tickets and picking up tickets and sound guides, all of that will move into the new building.
“But, most importantly, we’ll be rebuilding a part of the building that was intended by Henry III, his great rebuilding of the Abbey, on its original 13th century footprint.”
Built in the 1250s and an integral part of Henry III’s church, the Sacristy was where the monks kept vestments, altar linens and other artefacts needed for their daily worship, allowing the Abbey itself to be preserved in all its wonder as a sacred space.
The new building will be designed in sympathy with the Abbey’s Gothic architecture, with the project scheduled to be completed in 2026.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here