Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an Anglican church in the City of Westminster, London, England. Since 1066, it has been the location of the coronations of 40 English and British monarchs and a burial site for 18 English, Scottish, and British monarchs. At least 16 royal weddings have taken place at the abbey since 1100. Although the origins of the church are obscure, an abbey housing Benedictine monks was on the site by the mid-10th century. The church got its first large building from the 1040s, commissioned by King Edward the Confessor, who is buried inside. Construction of the present church began in 1245 on the orders of Henry III. The monastery was dissolved in 1559, and the church was made a royal peculiar – a Church of England church, accountable directly to the sovereign – by Elizabeth I. The abbey, the Palace of Westminster and St Margaret's Church became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987 because of their historic… Read by MykReeve. Recorded April 21, 2005; the article may have changed since. The article as it stood when recorded: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=12664072 Article today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Abbey Original recording: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Westminster_Abbey.ogg License: CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/). This episode is a format-shifted (MP3) copy redistributed under the same license. This show is an independent community project, not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation.