The Queen's funeral will be held at Westminster Abbey. Take a look inside the 750-year-old gothic church where kings, queens, and poets have been buried.
Maria Noyen
- The funeral service for Queen Elizabeth II will take place at Westminster Abbey in London, UK.
- It's a historical place, one with sentimental value to the Queen, who married Prince Philip there.
Elizabeth II was crowned queen at Westminster Abbey in 1953, and on Monday, it's where her coffin will lie briefly during her funeral.
A funeral service for the monarch, who reigned for 70 years on the British throne, is taking place in Westminster Abbey on Monday. Around 2,000 people are expected to attend, including members of her family — like Prince William and Prince Harry — and world leaders, like President Joe Biden.
Westminster Abbey was specifically chosen for the Queen to allow the most people to pay their respects, according to the duke who spent 20 years planning it.
Previous royal funerals have taken place elsewhere. The funerals for King George VI and Prince Phillip, for example, took place in Windsor Castle.
However, the duke who spent 20 years planning the Queen's funeral told The Times of London he'd decided it should take place at Westminster Abbey to account for the larger guest list and ensure that as many people as possible are able to pay tribute to the late monarch, who died aged 96 on September 8.
It was built on the remains of an older church in the middle of the 13th century.
Since then, Westminster Abbey has been the site of nearly every coronation of a British monarch, including the Queen's in 1953, as well as 16 royal weddings, according to the official website.
Inside the abbey, one of the first significant areas is called the nave. That's where the tomb of an unknown British soldier who died in France during World War II is located.
The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is steps away from the western entrance to the abbey. It marks the burial site of a British soldier killed in World War II, whose identity remains unknown, according to the abbey's website.
Also located in the nave is what is known as Scientists' Corner, where some of the greatest British scientific minds have been laid to rest, including Stephen Hawking.
Other scientists memorialized and buried alongside Hawking are Charles Darwin and Sir Isaac Newton, according to a tweet from the official Westminster Abbey account.
A similar space in the abbey is called Poets' Corner. Here, more than 100 writers and poets, including William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, have been memorialized.
The graves of Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, and Rudyard Kipling are also located within Poets' Corner, according to the Westminster Abbey website.
The abbey features a space for choir stalls, where singers have stood to sing hymns for an array of royal occasions such as Prince William and Kate Middleton's wedding.
Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, tied the knot at Westminster Abbey in 2011 in what is still one of the most lavish royal weddings to date. As Insider previously reported, the occasion cost $34 million, and an estimated global audience of 3 billion tuned in to watch it.
The Queen and Prince Philip's wedding ceremony was also held at Westminster Abbey in November 1947, which was attended by 2,500 guests.
Just steps away from the choir stalls is what's known as the Cosmati Pavement, an intricate floor mosaic constructed in 1268 from over 30,000 pieces of onyx, porphyry, and glass.
Somewhat eerily, it also includes three damaged medieval inscriptions predicting the end of the world. According to the Westminster Abbey website, the inscriptions calculated the world would last for 19,683 years.
Facing the pavement is the High Altar, where monarchs are crowned, which is gold embellished and was designed in 1867.
Also on the altar is a linseed-oil panel painting believed to have been painted as far back as 1270, according to the abbey website.
During the Queen's funeral, her casket will, for at least a day, lie close to the tomb of her namesake, Queen Elizabeth I.
Queen Elizabeth I died aged 69 in 1603. Her remains lie in the same vault at Westminster Abbey as her half-sister, Queen Mary, who she succeeded onto the throne of England.
The abbey has nearly been destroyed multiple times throughout its history, including when firebombs rained down on London in 1941 during World War II.
Although the abbey wasn't directly hit, parts of its roof were consumed by flames started by German firebombs in 1941. According to the BBC, Winston Churchill — who was prime minister at the time — said "the abbey must be saved at all costs."
But Westminster Abbey survived. In the decades that followed, it was the stage for multiple royal weddings, including the Queen's in 1947, and royal funerals, including Princess Diana's.
Just over 25 years to the date since Princess Diana's funeral at Westminster Abbey on September 6, 1997, the Queen's own is taking place at the very same site.
But while Diana's coffin would later be transported to the grounds of her family home at Althorp Park for burial, the Queen's final resting place will be St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, where her body will lie next to that of her husband, Prince Phillip.
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