March 29, 2024

Step Inside Westminster Abbey’s First Major Addition Since 1745

On June 11, a new tower – the first major addition to Westminster Abbey since 1745 – will begin leading visitors to galleries 50 feet above the abbey’s floor. The galleries fill a tucked-away space, called a triforium, which the English poet and writer John Betjeman once described as “offering the ‘best view in Europe,” but which had recently been used for storage.

The newly installed galleries, designed by London museum experts MUMA (McInnes Usher McKnight Architects), will showcase everything from funeral effigies of English kings and queens to the marriage certificate of the young royals William and Kate. The so-called queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries will, according to abbey officials, allow visitors to “deepen their understanding of the institution’s rich thousand-year history. ”

The Weston Tower at Westminster Abbey, designed by Ptolemy Dean Architects Limited. Ptolemy Dean is Surveyor of the Fabric of the abbey.

The new stair and elevator tower was designed by Ptolemy Dean, the abbey’s consulting architect (officially titled the Surveyor of the Fabric), a historic preservationist who once documented adobe buildings in Arizona and New Mexico, and is known for appearing on British TV shows like Restoration. It is set outside Poet’s Corner, the burial place of Charles Dickens, Geoffrey Chaucer, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and many others, near the southeast corner of the abbey.

Dean based the tower’s footprint on a motif found elsewhere in the abbey: a star formed by one square rotated on another. Its exterior is made of leaded glass windows set into walls that “sample” at least 16 kinds of stone used in the abbey ​since the 11th century​.

The queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries at Westminster Abbey.

In the galleries, artifacts are contained in simple glass vitrines beneath the triforium’s ancient oak rafters. One section of the exhibition, called Building Westminster Abbey, details the extensive renovations supervised by master architect Christopher Wren during his tenure as Surveyor of the Fabric in the early 18th century. It includes an intricate seven-foot-high model of the abbey with a tower planned by Wren but never built.

The exhibition designers were determined to keep the galleries’ windows uncovered, so they worked with environmental engineering company Max Fordham to map the path of sunlight through the space throughout the year, and then arranged the showcases so ​that direct rays​ ​would never ​reach them. ​

A close-up view of the the Weston Tower’s facade.

For architecture buffs, the ​appeal of the new galleries lies in both the ancient attic spaces​ themselves and the objects they contain. According to Dean, the galleries can accommodate 230 people at a time – how many tickets will be sold, at the abbey and, beginning in July at this website, will depend on how long visitors stick around.

Inside the queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries at Westminster Abbey.

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