Westminster Abbey: Archaeological Recording at the West End of the Church

Abstract

Recent recording work on the masonry of the West Front of Westminster Abbey is here described. The later medieval documentary evidence for the rebuilding of the western half of the nave (in the fourteenth, fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries) is also re-assessed and a new architectural history for the whole of the west end of the Abbey church is proposed. It is also suggested that the core of the lower fifty feet of the western towers dates from the twelfth century, and that the western porch and lower windows in the tower were added in about 1340.