Queen Elizabeth attends service for Westminster Abbey's 750th anniversary

LONDON: Queen Elizabeth attended a service at London’s Westminster Abbey on Tuesday to mark 750 years since King Edward the Confessor’s original church on the site was rebuilt during the reign of Henry III and consecrated in 1269.

The 93-year-old monarch was accompanied by her daughter-in-law Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, wife of her eldest son Prince Charles.

The Anglo-Saxon abbey, one of Britain’s oldest and biggest tourist attractions, was where Elizabeth was crowned in 1953, where her grandson Prince William and his wife Kate were married in 2011 and where 17 British monarchs are buried.

It was originally consecrated in 1065 and mostly demolished by Henry III to build the present Gothic structure. At the start of the service, a bouquet of roses was laid at the Shrine of St. Edward the Confessor on behalf of the queen.

Later, abbey treasures including a fragment of the shroud from the shrine were laid on the High Altar.