Westminster

WESTMINSTER, a part of London, England ; strictly a city in the administrative county of London, bounded east by "the City," south by the river Thames, west by the boroughs of Chel sea and Kensington, and north by Paddington, St. Marylebone and Holborn. Westminster was formed into a borough by the London Government Act of 1899, and by a royal charter of the 29th of October 1900 it was created a city. The city comprises two parliamentary divisions known as the Abbey and St. George's, each returning one member. Area, 2,502.7 acres. Pop. (1931) 129,535. The City of Westminster, as thus depicted, extends from the western end of Fleet Street to Kensington Gardens, and from Oxford Street to the Thames, which it borders over a dis tance of 3 m., between Victoria (Chelsea) Bridge and a point below Waterloo Bridge. It thus contains a large number of national and imperial public buildings from the Law Courts in the east to the Imperial Institute in the west, including Buckingham and St. James's palaces and the National Gallery. But the name of Westminster is more generally associated with a more confined area, namely, the quarter which includes the Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, the government and other buildings in Whitehall. the Roman Catholic Cathedral, and the parts immedi ately adjacent to these.

Westminster Abbey.

The Abbey of St. Peter is the most widely celebrated church in the British empire. The Thames was bordered in early times by a great expanse of fen land from Chelsea and Battersea, while near the point where the Abbey stands was a low island perhaps three-quarters of a mile in cir cumference, known as Thorney or Bramble islet. Tributary streams from the north formed channels through the marsh, flank ing the island north and south, and were once connected by a dyke on the west. These channels belonged to the Tyburn, which flowed from the high ground of Hampstead. There have been stories of a temple of Apollo and of a church founded under "King Lucius"; there is more probability in the statement of Stow that King Sebert founded a church of St. Peter on Thorney Isle, and

legend relates the coming of St. Peter himself to hallow his new church. A charter of Offa, king of Mercia (785), deals with the conveyance of certain land to the monastery of St. Peter; and King Edgar restored the church, defining by a charter dated 951 (not certainly genuine) the boundary of Westminster, extending (in modern terms) from the Marble Arch south to the Thames and east to the City boundary, the former river Fleet. Westminster was a Benedictine foundation. In 1050 Edward the Confessor took up the erection of a new church, cruciform, with a central and two western towers. It was consecrated in 1065 before the Con fessor died, but building was continued afterwards. In 1245 Henry III. set about the rebuilding of the church east of the rave.

The Church.

The present Abbey is a cruciform structure con sisting of nave with aisles, transepts with aisles (but in the south transept the place of the western aisle is occupied by the eastern cloister walk), and choir of polygonal apsidal form, with six chapels (four polygonal) opening north and south of it, and an eastern Lady chapel, known as Henry VII.'s chapel. There are two western towers, but in the centre a low square tower hardly rises above the pitch of the roof. The main entrance in common use is that in the north transept. The chapter-house, cloisters and other conventual buildings and remains lie to the south. The total length of the church (exterior) is 531 ft. and of the transepts 203 ft. in all. The breadth of the nave without the aisles is 38 ft. 7 in. and its height close upon 102 ft. These dimensions are very slightly lessened in the choir. The exterior is finely proportioned, but the building has been much altered. Wren designed the western towers, completed in i 740 after his death, and Sir Gilbert Scott and Pearson rebuilt the north front.