Westminster abbey tours

The Verger tours give you access to the Tomb of Edward the Confessor. No other tour allows that. I've done a number of London Walks tours (although not this one) and love them but for this I'd go with the Verger tour.

Also, be sure to download the audio tour for Westminster Abbey to your smartphone before you go. After your verger tour you can still stay inside and revisit some things. I listened to most of the whole audio tour after the verger tour.

As I understood it from the Verger, the reason Edward the Confessor's tomb area is off limits is that the floor is less sound than they would allow for lots of visitors to go into the small chapel.

That is very helpful. Thank you.

We did the London Walks tour at Christmas time and the walk was over-subscribed, i.e., the group wa so large as to be unmanageable. Halfway through, we gave up and wandered on our own as we could not hear the guide. The good part was, we got to skip the huge line outside.

A couple of months later we returned to London in March and waltzed in, no line, and rented the audio guide available there. It was terrific and we felt we had a far better experience self guiding with the audio guide.

Just did this 2 weeks ago. With help from this forum, we booked the entry for Queens Jubilee Gallery with entry to Westminster Abbey just prior. This allowed us to enter the Abbey, get tickets to a Verger tour, and backtrack to to th Gallery first. The. We went into the Abbey to meet with our timed Verger tour. It was very good, this was my 3rd time to WMA, yet the Verger tour opened a whole new door of information and access to areas we never have been able to view before. Highly recommend this way to visit the Abbey.

I did not know about Queen’s Jubalee Gallery so thank you. I think we will try the same thing.

I went to a service, that was free and good to see where the wedding bouquets are put after royal weddings :)
Have a great time !
-Alison

We were going to go to evensong at St. Paul’s which would allow us to at least see the interior (as well as experience the service) but thought we would spend the money for a tour at Westminister abbey.

Judy, how long did you give yourselves for the Queen’s Jubilee Gallery? I like your plan.

I've done several different tours in Westminster Abbey and, BY FAR, the verger tours are the best. First, they are incredibly cheap (once you have paid for admission) and the groups are quite small, relatively speaking. The vergers are employees of the church who are responsible for all ceremonial and liturgical traditions, taking care of and guiding dignitaries and the royal family, the physical objects, fabrics, ornamentation, ceremonies, etc. They have deep knowledge of everything. The last verger who's tour I took had seated the royal family at Kate and William's wedding and sat just to the side of them at the wedding. They are a part of the history of the church and can tell you whatever minute detail you want to know. I believe that you can only go up to the tomb of Edward the Confessor on these tours - no others. That in and of itself is worth taking a tour this way.