50 free Westminster Abbey trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Westminster Abbey has hosted every English and British coronation since William the Conqueror in 1066, at least sixteen royal weddings, and the burials of more than 3,300 people from Edward the Confessor to Stephen Hawking. This quiz covers the building (Henry III's French-inspired Gothic, the Henry VII Chapel that a Tudor antiquary called 'the wonder of the world', the Cosmati pavement, the 18th-century towers, Britain's oldest door), the ceremonies (the Coronation Chair, the Stone of Scone and its 1950 theft, the Vivat shouted by Westminster School boys) and the graves in Poets' Corner and the scientists' corner. It also digs into the stranger corners of the abbey's story: Oliver Cromwell's body dug up and hanged, a workman's scaffold pole through Edward the Confessor's coffin, Ben Jonson buried upright, the suffragette bomb of 1914, the Blitz, Diana's funeral watched by two billion people and the first monarch's funeral held there in 260 years. Difficulty runs from easy to expert. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the abbey, its chapels and monuments and the people buried there, and each question shows the sentence that supports it. Try our London, British monarchy and Tudors quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is Westminster Abbey's formal title?
The Collegiate Church of Saint Peter
It has not been an abbey with monks since 1559, and it is not a cathedral either; it is a 'royal peculiar' answering directly to the sovereign.
Q 02Since 1066, how many English and British monarchs have been crowned at the abbey?
40
The first documented coronation was William the Conqueror's on Christmas Day 1066; Harold Godwinson was probably crowned there earlier that year.
Q 03Which king built the first large church on the site in the 1040s and is buried inside?
Edward the Confessor
His church was consecrated on 28 December 1065, about a week before he died; he was canonised in 1161.
Q 04Construction of the present Gothic church began in 1245 on the orders of which king?
Henry III
He wanted a shrine to Edward the Confessor to rival Reims Cathedral and the Sainte-Chapelle, and a burial place for his own family.
Q 05The abbey originally stood on an islet in the Thames known as what?
Thorney Island
Dunstan and King Edgar installed a community of Benedictine monks there in about 959.
Q 06The monks who occupied the abbey from the 10th century until 1559 belonged to which order?
Benedictine
The community grew from about a dozen monks under Dunstan to as many as 80 under Edward the Confessor.
Q 07In 1560 the abbey was re-established as a 'royal peculiar', meaning it answers directly to whom?
The sovereign
Elizabeth I set it up that way after ejecting the monks for the second time; she also re-founded Westminster School.
Q 08The abbey's Gothic design is chiefly modelled on churches from which country?
France
Reims Cathedral was the main inspiration, which is why the nave is unusually tall and narrow for an English church.
Q 09The abbey's nave holds what distinction among Gothic churches in England?
It is the highest
The vault reaches 102 feet (31 m), and the nave is far narrower than any medieval English church of similar height.
Q 10The two western towers were only added in the 1740s, designed by which architect?
Nicholas Hawksmoor
He blended Gothic with the Baroque of his own day; the abbey had no towers at all for its first 500 years.
Q 11The Henry VII Chapel is a celebrated example of which style?
Perpendicular Gothic
The antiquary John Leland called it orbis miraculum, 'the wonder of the world', for its pendant fan-vaulted ceiling.
Q 12Westminster Abbey's Tudor chapel was built to house the remains of which king its founder wanted canonised?
Henry VI
The abbey paid £500 for papal permission to move the body from Windsor, but Henry VIII dropped the plan and buried his father there instead.
Q 13The tomb of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York was sculpted by an Italian famous for having done what?
Broken Michelangelo's nose in a fight
Q 21Who is blamed for the initials and graffiti carved into the Coronation Chair?
Tourists, choirboys and schoolboys
Souvenir hunters also hacked at the corner posts; the chair was left largely unguarded for centuries.
Q 22In 1914 the Coronation Chair was damaged by a bomb thought to have been planted by whom?
Suffragettes
The blast blew off a corner of the chair and, unknown to anyone until 1950, cracked the Stone of Scone in half.
Q 23Where did the Stone of Scone turn up in April 1951 after nationalists took it from the abbey?
Arbroath
Pietro Torrigiano fled Italy after the brawl and ended up working for the Tudors.
Q 14The Henry VII Chapel has been the mother church of which order of chivalry since 1725?
The Bath
The banners of its members hang above the stalls; the Garter's home is St George's Chapel, Windsor.
Q 15The 13th-century tile floor before the High Altar is named after which Roman family of craftsmen?
Cosmati
It is unique among such floors for its dark Purbeck-marble borders, and it was cleaned and restored over two years from 2008.
Q 16From 1257, assemblies of local representatives in the abbey's chapter house were a precursor to what?
The Commons
The octagonal room, nearly 60 feet across, has benches for 80 monks and an original 13th-century tiled floor.
Q 17Britain's oldest dated door, in the abbey's chapter house vestibule, came from a tree felled in which period?
1032–1064
Known as the Pyx door, it may have served Edward the Confessor's chapter house before being reused in the 13th century.
Q 18The word 'pyx', as in the Pyx Chamber, refers to a boxwood chest used to hold what?
Newly minted coins
At the Trial of the Pyx a jury still checks that new coins meet the required standards.
Q 19Which king had the Coronation Chair made and entrusted it to the abbot of Westminster?
Edward I
He had captured the Scottish coronation stone in 1296 and wanted a throne to hold it.
Q 20The Coronation Chair was carved from oak by which craftsman?
Walter of Durham
It has been used at every coronation since 1308, and its gilded lion legs were replaced in 1727.
The four students who took it at Christmas 1950 left it on the altar of the abbey where Scotland's 1320 declaration of independence was signed.
Q 24The Stone of Scone was returned to Scotland in which year?
1996
It was kept at Edinburgh Castle with the Honours of Scotland and moved to Perth Museum in 2024, travelling south for the 2023 coronation.
Q 25The pupils of Westminster School have the duty of shouting what during a coronation?
Vivat Rex or Vivat Regina
The King's or Queen's Scholars have done so since Elizabeth I re-founded the school with 40 pupils.
Q 26Oliver Cromwell was given a lavish funeral at the abbey in 1658; what happened to his body in 1661?
It was dug up and hanged at Tyburn
The restored monarchy took a posthumous revenge on the Lord Protector, and his head ended up on a pole above Westminster Hall.
Q 27During preparations for James II's coronation in 1685, a workman accidentally did what?
Pierced Edward the Confessor's coffin with a pole
The saint's coffin was inside a shrine whose golden casing had been melted down at the Reformation.
Q 28Who was the last monarch to be buried in Westminster Abbey?
George II
He was interred next to Caroline of Ansbach in 1760; later monarchs lie at Windsor or Frogmore.
Q 29The south transept is known as Poets' Corner; who was the first poet buried there, around 1400?
Geoffrey Chaucer
He got the spot not for his verse but because he was Clerk of the King's Works and lived in the abbey precincts.
Q 30William Shakespeare's monument in Poets' Corner was erected in which year?
1740
The playwright is buried in Stratford-upon-Avon; his memorial arrived more than a century after his death.