Edward the Confessor refounds Westminster Abbey

1052

The pious king began rebuilding a small Benedictine monastery by the Thames into a grand Romanesque church with a nave longer than anything in England. He would be buried before its high altar fourteen years later, and his coronation church would remain the site of every English crowning since. The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the completed abbey with its distinctive central tower, already a landmark on the London skyline.