28 December: Westminster Abbey

This date in 1065 saw the Consecration of Westminster Abbey in London. Here are some things you may not know about it:

1. Westminster Abbey is formally titled the Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster.
2. In 1042, Edward the Confessor began rebuilding St Peter's Abbey to provide himself with a church to be buried in. Although the building wasn't finished until 1090, it was consecrated on 28 December 1065, presumably because Edward knew at this point he wasn't long for this world - he died a week later.
3. Edward's successor Harold II was probably the first monarch to be crowned at the abbey, although the first one to be documented was that of William the Conqueror. Since then, Westminster Abbey has been the venue for coronations of English and British monarchs. Henry III was crowned in Gloucester Cathedral because the French had control of London at the time, but the Pope deemed this improper, and so he was crowned again in Westminster Abbey as soon as possible.
4. The coronation throne is kept in the Abbey. It is called King Edward's Chair (or St Edward's Chair) and has been used at every coronation since 1308. Before the Stone of Scone, on which Scottish kings were crowned, was returned to Scotland, it was also kept with the chair. The stone may well return temporarily for future coronations.
5. The Abbey is also the venue for royal weddings, the first being on 11 November 1100 when King Henry I of England married Matilda of Scotland.
6. Funerals are held here, too, with most kings and queens up until George II being buried there. A few, and most royals from the modern age are buried at Windsor. You don't have to be a king or queen to have been buried there - being a national hero would qualify you, too. Since Oliver Cromwell had Admiral Robert Blake buried there in in 1657, it has been the final resting place for a number of national figures including Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, William Wilberforce, William Pitt and Geoffrey Chaucer. In 1905 the actor Sir Henry Irving was cremated and his ashes buried in Westminster Abbey, thereby becoming the first person ever to be cremated prior to interment at the abbey.
7. The Abbey has the tomb of The Unknown Warrior, an unidentified British soldier killed on a European battlefield during the First World War. He was buried in the abbey on 11 November 1920. The Lady Chapel has a memorial to airmen of the RAF killed in the Second World War. It incorporates a memorial window to the Battle of Britain, which replaced an earlier Tudor stained glass window which was destroyed during the war.
8. The towers are 225 feet (69m) high. The floor area is 32,000 square feet (3,000 m2), and the width of the nave is 85 feet (26m).
9. In 1536 the Abbey was the second richest in England, second only to Glastonbury. Westminster escaped the dissolution of the monasteries unscathed, because Henry VIII didn't want to destroy it, and so had it turned into a cathedral. It was a cathedral for about 16 years. Now it is a Church of England "Royal Peculiar"—a church responsible directly to the sovereign.
10. Westminster School and Westminster Abbey Choir School are also in the precincts of the abbey. The Abbey has always been a seat of learning, with the Benedictine monks required by the Pope to maintain a charity school there in 1179. Before the 19th century, it had almost as high a status as Oxford and Cambridge for education. the first third of the King James Bible Old Testament and the last half of the New Testament were translated here, and in the 20th Century The New English Bible was also put together here.