Long-time London resident and avid museum and theatre-goer. I started this blog in 2014, and got serious about it in 2020 when I realised how much I missed arts and culture during lockdowns. I go to a lot more events than anyone would think is sensible, and love sharing my thoughts in the forms of reviews, the occasional thought piece, and travel recommendations when I leave my London HQ.
The trick to London is often paying attention to place names, as this walk around the precincts of Westminster Abbey amply illustrates!
Exploring the Precincts of Westminster Abbey
London, it’s been a while! Like I was saying recently in my review of 2023, there is far too much to see and do (although I can’t help but try). While I had plenty of time for getting out and about in London during lockdowns, it’s a little trickier these days – it’s been a while since I did a local heritage walk.
But a week off from work sometimes provides an opportunity to get out exploring. And so with a day at my disposal, admittedly now some months ago, I picked up one of my vintage books of walks and selected a wander around the precincts of Westminster Abbey. Ironically, I was working in this area until recently and never took the time to look around the back streets. That’s often the way, though: you take the places you see on a day to day basis for granted. The book I followed was the one above: Discovering Offbeat Walks in London by John Wittich and Ron Phillips. First published in 1969, this is a later reprint and updated to at least 1986.
An important point to note before we start: this is not a post about Westminster Abbey itself. We will see it on the way, but the walk circumnavigates the Abbey. This is rather about the surrounding area. Let’s start with a brief overview of Westminster Abbey, however, to set the scene.
Westminster Abbey: A Potted History
An Abbey has been on this site for over a millennium. Its origins are obscure: our book references a legend that Saint Peter himself hitched a ride with some fishermen to Thorney Island in the estuary of the lost Tyburn River. The church that was built there and named for him made the most of this saintly connection, claiming a tithe on all fish caught in the environs of Thorney Island. Even today, the Fishmongers’ Company make an annual offering of salmon.
The current incarnation of the building dates to the reign of Henry III. An earlier version from the reign of Edward the Confessor is commemorated in the Bayeux Tapestry. Edward the Confessor was buried here and dug up some years later, found to be in perfect condition, and subsequently canonised.
Until the Reformation there was a monastery attached to the Abbey. Like Winchester Cathedral it has long had a royal connection. The first documented coronation here was that of William the Conqueror. The most recent was of course that of Charles III. The abbey was once adjacent to the Palace of Westminster, now the site of the Houses of Parliament. It is still formally the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter, Westminster.
As Thorney Island disappeared in the Middle Ages, Westminster Abbey came to control large swathes of the surrounding land. Its holdings once went as far as modern day Oxford Street, as well as including several London parishes. The shape of the land around the Abbey sometimes has echoes in place names. As well as those we will visit below, there are such obvious clues as Abbey Orchard Street. Even without a guidebook in hand, really thinking about the words on street signs is always an interesting pastime in London.
The Precincts of Westminster: St. James’ Park Station
Heading from Victoria towards St. James’ Park Station (some debate over the apostrophe but I’m using one), this is not yet the official start of the walk. But I can’t help but notice stranded historic buildings amongst office towers. This charity school operated from 1709 to 1926. It had a busy afterlife as an American services store, Girl Guides youth club, and National Trust shop. Today it’s home to Studio Ashby. Onwards now, let’s start our walk!And here we are. St James’ Park Station. 55 Broadway. This Grade I listed building is arguably London’s first skyscraper: at least that’s what a walk I went on with Hidden London once told me. Such tours no longer run, however. At the time I visited, this was the headquarters of TfL – Transport for London. At the time of my guidebook, they were known as London Regional Transport. The book informs me that by calling ABBey 1234, you could once get someone to answer all your transport questions or ask them to send you a set of maps. Sounds very useful! But TfL moved out in 2020, and now have offices in the Olympic Park.The architect of 55 Broadway was Charles Holden. He also designed a number of London Underground stations. Sculptors Jacob Epstein and Eric Gill were commissioned to produce sculptures for the exterior. Here is Gill’s Night.Inside St. James’ Park Station, the currently empty shopping centre really shows off the Art Deco design.Looking down the street in one direction we see Petty France. The name may come either from French refugees after the 1685 Edict of Nantes (ie. Huguenots), or from older French wool merchants.And in the other direction we have Broadway. It is indeed fairly broad, thanks to the clearance of small alleys and slums to create Victoria Street in 1845. Note our first glimpse of Westminster Abbey in the background!
Around Queen Anne’s Gate
A short distance from the Art Deco modernity of 55 Broadway is the 18th century elegance of Queen Anne’s Gate. The part closest to us was once Queen Anne’s Square: where the street narrows was Park Street. Most of the buildings are Grade I-listed, and this has long been a favourite residence of politicians thanks to its proximity to Westminster.I wouldn’t have known without the guide book that all of these decorative faces are made of Coade Stone. I thought we’d spoken about Coade Stone before on the blog, but apparently we haven’t. It was an artificial substance manufactured by the Coade family. One famous example of their work is the lion near County Hall on Westminster Bridge. It’s marvellous stuff: long wearing and impervious to London pollution like nothing else. However, the technique was lost when the last family member died. One company has attempted to revive it back through modern chemical analysis.Another notable feature of Queen Anne’s Gate is this sculpture of the lady herself. It was meant for a column at St Mary le Strand church, but the queen died in 1714 before the church was finished and the statue came here instead.Lord Palmerston is one of those political residents I was talking about. Here is his blue plaque.
We Are Now Approaching Westminster Abbey
I think this looks a rather Dickensian corner as we exit Queen Anne’s Gate.This is Dartmouth Street. This brings us to the first of the alterations since our guidebook was published. Wittich and Phillips tell us to look out for the Fabian Society buildings on the right. They’re now around the corner on Petty France. But something tells me this might have been their former headquarters, now the Slovenian Embassy. Maybe I’m wrong, but it just looks like the right sort of place. In fact I looked it up and I am wrong, but here’s the Slovenian Embassy nonetheless and another handsome 18th century building.And here we are now on Tothill Street. Wittich and Phillips inform us that a ‘tothill’ or ‘toothill’ is a place suitable for a stronghold. The King James Bible apparently mentions the ‘tothill of Zion’. Tothill Fields, now beneath these streets, have a long and bloody history as battlefield, execution site, and home to Gatehouse Prison. It’s where Sir Walter Raleigh spent his last night before his execution, and Samuel Pepys was briefly detained here due to a misunderstanding.A quick look back at our starting point from Broadway, before……we head to the Methodist Central Hall. As the plaque indicates, this was the site of early sessions of the United Nations. Built in French Renaissance style, it has one of the largest domes in London (at least when our book was written but I don’t imagine that’s changed). Sir Robert Perks, Liberal MP and (of course) devout Methodist, was largely responsible for its construction. It hosts many public events. A fact I didn’t previously know is that there was an aquarium on the site before the Hall. A rather large aquarium, which seems to have been home to more scandals than fish!We’re almost there, I’m just going to show you the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Hall. That it’s in our guidebook is how I know it’s updated at least to 1986, the year this bad boy opened.
Around Westminster Abbey and St Margaret’s Church
Ah, here we are at last. I’ve just taken a quick step back to give you a good view.Before we cross over the street, let’s take a moment to consider its name. Broad Sanctuary. A literal sanctuary once existed on this site: a place criminals could live in safety. Provided their crimes didn’t involve treason or upset the church. The first record of a sanctuary here was in the late 12th century. It seems a good place for it, given Thevenlane (Thieves’ Lane) was nearby.And one final sight on this side of the street. Before London became as London-y (ie. huge) as it is today, it was part of the county of Middlesex. Middlesex no longer exists, except in namesakes like the Middlesex County Cricket Club (whose home is Lords). But this building here was once Middlesex Guildhall. It now houses the Supreme Court and Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.And this is St Margaret’s, the parish church of Westminster. Edward the Confessor had the first church here built, to stop the local congregation quarrelling with the abbey monks. It’s also been the parish church of the House of Commons since 1614. At the time of our guidebook, these sites were more easily accessed than they are today. Today, you need a Westminster Abbey ticket to get closer to St Margaret’s than this photo. Which is a shame, because Wittich and Phillips reference some very nice-sounding stained glass. Scenes from the life of Sir Walter Raleigh, and Flemish glass gifted to Henry VII by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain on the occasion of their children’s marriage. You really can’t make out stained glass from the outside.My next disappointment was that my book suggested there was a Roman boundary stone in the churchyard. There’s even a photo so I knew what I was looking for. But no sign of it. I spotted the later boundary stones (I think?) in the second image, and even went back for a second look – nada. Hopefully it’s somewhere safe.
Old Palace Yard and Various Sculptures
The reason I know the access and ticketing set up was once very different? My book told me to take this path, now very much off limits. Not that I’m bitter or anything. But I really did want to find that Roman stone…Since I couldn’t get inside St Margaret’s, I had a good look at the stonework in the porch.As we’re here, I’ll give you a nice view of the Palace of Westminster. You can read about my visit to Speaker’s House here.And as we round the Eastern Chapels of Westminster Abbey, we come to Old Palace Yard. The reason the UK’s Parliament is called the Palace of Westminster is that there was a royal palace here. But it mostly burned down in the reign of Henry VIII. After another fire in 1834 it was replaced with this version.We pass by this fine statue of George V.And come across the Jewel Tower. We’ve seen this before in depth (see here). But what I didn’t realise then was that the moat had water and fish in it at least until the time of our book. That would be a lovely thing to have back again!Here’s another look at Victoria Tower, and this sculpture, which I haven’t properly paid attention to before. It’s Henry Moore’s Knife-Edge Two-Piece (1965). Rather lovely. Other casts of this work are in Moore’s former studio in Hertfordshire, in Vancouver, and in the Rockefeller family’s estate in Tarrytown, New York. This one is part of the Parliamentary Art Collection and is Grade II-listed.We’ve skipped over Victoria Tower Gardens, which you can almost glimpse at the end of the street. We’ve been there before in nicer weather and seen sculptures including a Rodin cast.
Around Smith Square
Turning the other way now, we have in front of us St John’s Smith Square. Our book calls it “Thomas Archer’s former church of St. John the Evangelist, Westminster”. I’ve mentioned it before: Charles Dickens famously said it looked like a petrified monster on its back. The apocryphal story is that Queen Anne kicked over a footstool and asked for a church that looked like that. Wittich and Phillips more pragmatically point out that the four towers support the building on marshy land. Today’s it’s a classical music venue, but not one I’ve yet been to.The former church, which dates to 1728 and was one of 50 new churches built in the reign of Queen Anne (that part of the story is true, at least), nestles amongst these charming 18th century houses.And here is a great example of the types of things you don’t always notice if someone doesn’t point this out to you. Leaving Smith Square by Lord North Street, I wouldn’t have noticed all the ghost signs for WWII shelters. But there are plenty, more than I’ve included here! We now turn into some very smart streets, and see more of a residential aspect to Westminster than I’m used to. Ex MPs and their spouses are one type of people who live around here. I know this because I got chatting to one such spouse, who shared some information I will repeat shortly.Other types of people who have lived around here in the past are actors/directors. See here the blue plaque commemorating John Gielgud.And finally in terms of local residents, we have T. E. Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia. The friendly lady I mentioned earlier said he rented a couple of rooms at the top of this house from relatives, and that at the time this area wasn’t quite so well to do as it is now. So there you have it, insider information from Barton Street.
A Farewell to the Precincts of Westminster Abbey
Leaving Barton Street and blue plaques behind, here we get a good view of the wall formerly of the monastic precinct of Westminster Abbey. A nice historic reminder. Also a marker that, having looped around Smith Square and back towards Westminster Abbey, we’re heading into religious territory once more.This shift is only underscored by our encounter with this red brick building, the London House of St Edward. Part of the Society of St John the Evangelist, this is the oldest order for men in the Church of England. It only dates to 1866, but it counts. A new monastic order right next to Westminster Abbey. Funny how things come full circle like that.And we will pass now through this gate into a final surprise and another place in London I’d never been before today: Dean’s Yard.Yes, that is Westminster Abbey again in the top image! Dean’s Yard is part of the jurisdiction of Westminster Abbey. Amongst other things it contains Church House (bottom image), the parliament of the Church of England. It also contains Westminster School, which in the English tradition is called a public school, meaning a very exclusive private school. Plebs like you and me may not walk on the grass, which is reserved as a sports field for the school.Crossing to the other side of Dean’s Yard, we exit through another nice gateway. If you were paying attention, you may have spotted this column earlier, but I didn’t mention it. Sir George Gilbert Scott designed it ‘To the memory of those educated at Westminster School who died in the Russian and Indian Wars AD 1854-1859’.So then it’s time to bid Westminster Abbey and its precincts farewell. This has been a reminder for me that, even in areas of London I know fairly well, there’s a lot to learn when you pay attention. I hope you’ve enjoyed this walk, and maybe learned a thing or two as well. Until next time!
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