Westminster Abbey , originally the abbey church of a Benedictine monastery in London. A major English Gothic structure, it is a national shrine. In 1245 Henry III demolished a Norman church and began a new eastern portion, inaugurating centuries of development. The chapter house was built in 1250, the cloisters and main monastic buildings in the 14th cent. The nave was completed in the 16th cent.
French influence is seen in the nave, the highest in England, and in the flying buttresses.
Almost all English monarchs since William I have been crowned in the Abbey, and noted English subjects are buried there, e.g., Chaucer and Robert Browning in the Poets' Corner. The kings and queens of England are crowned there, and many rulers and famous men of Britain are buried there. The church is built in the shape of a cross, in the style of architecture called Gothic. There are nearly 100 statuettes in the Chapel of Henry VII, and in it are buried Mary Queen of Scots, William and Mary, Queen Elizabeth 1, and other kings, queens, and members of the royal family. The Poet's Corner contains the tombs of Chaucer, Spenser, Browning, Tennyson, and many other famous writers and poets.