I get the feeling that my previous post had too much information for some people, and so for this final chapter about Westminster Abbey I’ve cut down on the claptrap and increased the number of pictures. I hope this meets with everyone’s approval.

On leaving Henry VII’s Lady Chapel, head left down the South Ambulatory (which I covered in Part 5) towards the South Transept and Poets Corner. It’s one of the most popular places to visit in the abbey and the numbers are swelled by those who are looking to take the weight off their feet, especially as this is the first place seats are provided since leaving the nave.

There are over a hundred poets and authors buried or commemorated here and the size of the monument doesn’t always reflect on how famous they are, but none of the memorials are as large as those in the Statesmen’s Aisle in the North Transept opposite. It got me wondering though as to who decides whether a person warrants a burial or memorial in the abbey at all, and the answer is quite simple – the Dean. Incidentally, it’s rare for a recently deceased poet to be included in Poets’ Corner, as like anyone else, they can be flavour of the month one minute and the devil reincarnated the next.

The first poet to be buried here was Geoffrey Chaucer in 1400, not because he was the author of the Canterbury Tales, but because he was Clerk of the King’s Works in the Palace of Westminster across the road. His burial place was initially marked by a plain slab, and it wasn’t until 1556 that the present marble monument was erected in his memory.

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Originally posted 2023-04-09 11:50:47.