Queen leads celebration of Westminster Abbey’s 750th anniversary

Queen Elizabeth II, on Tuesday, led a celebration of the 750th anniversary of the reopening of Westminster Abbey, one of Britain’s most iconic buildings, in Central London.
The 93-year-old monarch was accompanied to the service by Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall and wife of Prince Charles, the queen’s eldest son and heir.
Christian and other faith leaders also attended the service.
“Today we celebrate the history of this abbey and its church and mark its continuing significance as a place of worship and of memorial.
“Standing firmly for faith at the heart of our nation and Commonwealth and of the wider world,” John Hall, the Dean of Westminster, said at the opening of the service.
Westminster Abbey has hosted every coronation of a British monarch since 1066 and 16 royal weddings.
The queen and her 98-year-old husband, Prince Philip, married there in 1947.
The abbey hosted the queen’s coronation six years later.
Benedictine monks founded the abbey around 960 AD, according to its official history.
Tuesday’s service marks the 750th anniversary of the consecration of the third religious building on the site, constructed in French Gothic style to the orders of King Henry III from 1245 to 1269.
Henry III rebuilt the abbey to show his devotion to St Edward the Confessor, spending the equivalent of some 15 million pounds in today’s money on the building and an extravagant shrine to St Edward at its centre.
Seventeen monarchs and many other leading British figures are interred in the abbey.