Westminster Abbey has confirmed that it will have to close for a few weeks to prepare the Collegiate Church for the forthcoming Coronation of King Charles III.
Compared to previous Corronations though, it’s a fairly short closure, signifying the rather more modern, and much smaller scale of the King’s Coronation this time.
The Abbey will close to visitors from Tuesday 25th April and will re-open on Monday 8th May. So the Abbey will be closed for just two weeks in order to prepare for the Coronation.
To put the scale of the event into context, when Queen Elizabeth II was crowned, the Abbey had to be closed for 10 months – from early January to November 1953, for the massive amount of work to fill every spare space with additional seating.
And then remove it all.
Likewise, going back, for the Coronation of King George VI, Westminster Abbey had to be closed from early January through to September 1937. For King George V, the abbey was closed from 1st March to 7th September 1911. They also kept the electric lighting that was added for the Corronation to replace the old gas lighting.
And finally, for Edward VII, the abbey closed from Easter through to August 1902.
So, the closure of the Abbey for King Charles III, of just a couple of weeks to prepare for the ceremony is quite modest in comparison.
The Coronation itself takes place on Saturday 6th May 2023.
So that will be a couple of days to install TV cameras, cables, lighting and shift the chairs around then time for a lot of rehearsals with the King & Queen doing a couple of those at least.
Then the Sat Night and Sunday to remove the TV stuff.
Rearranging chairs etc can take place over a slower time frame
I’d imagine the Abbey would like to display the Coronation set up for a short while for the public to see.
Coronations have always been events to progress new technology. Just think of the way the last one brought forward the rollout of TV across the nation.
Hopefully this one will be captured ready for full virtual reality. The ‘Charles III Wedding immersive experience’ would sure as heck draw the tourist crowds in for years after the actual event. And I’m sure Zuckerberg would be after it for his metaverse.
Missed opportunity. Charles III should have taken the chance to have the first registry office coronation.
Whilst the scale may well be a factor for the shorter closing I imagine a greater factor is the technology advances and ease to mount these events. You only have to read your own blog here
https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/the-year-a-railway-ran-inside-westminster-abbey-40790/
WHile it may be easier and quicker to assemble vast amounts of scaffolding (really?), the heritage regulations are now vastly tighter than they used to be, so a job of that scale would likely take longer, not be shorter.
To be fair, one of the reasons for the length of closure for Edward VII’s coronation was the fact it had to be postponed due to his emergency appendectomy shortly before the originally scheduled date