Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey including Saint Margaret's Church
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How it came to be
The abbey is thought to date from about 959, when Dunstan and King Edgar settled Benedictine monks on Thorney Island in the Thames. In the 1040s Edward the Confessor rebuilt the abbey on a large scale and set up a royal palace beside it. Since 1066, 40 English and British monarchs have been crowned there.
The present abbey church was begun by Henry III in 1245 in the Gothic style. The palace lost its royal apartments to fire in 1512 but remained the home of Parliament, until a fire on 16 October 1834 destroyed most of it. Westminster Hall, built in the late 11th century, survived.
Charles Barry won the competition for a new palace and, with Augustus Pugin designing the details, built it in Gothic Revival style over 30 years from 1840. The small St Margaret's Church next door has served the House of Commons since 1614. UNESCO listed the ensemble in 1987.
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