Westminster Abbey is a large Gothic church close to the Houses of Parliament.
Founded in 960 AD the church, which is no longer an abbey or a cathedral, has been a place of coronation and burial for English and British Kings and Queens.
Up until 1760, most British Kings and Queens were buried in the Abbey. Notable exceptions are Henry VIII and Charles I who are buried in St Georges Chapel at Windsor Castle.
Monks and others asscoiated with the Abbey are also interred within the church. Geoffrey Chaucer is buried here. Other poets, writers and musicians were buried or memorialised in the same area which is now commonly known as Poets Corner.
Oliver Cromwell is responsible for the practice of burying national figures inside the Abbey. Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and William Wilberforce are all buried there.
Just inside the West door, in the centre of the Nave, is the tomb of the Unknown Warrior. The body interred here is that of a soldier from a European battlefield who died during the First World War. There are many graves on the Abbey floor, but this is the only one upon which it is forbidden to step.
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