Guide to the Historic Landmarks of Westminster: Palace of Westminster, Westminster Abbey, and St. Margaret’s Church

Big Ben’s tower just went through the most extensive repair job in its 160-year history, a five-year scaffolded overhaul that finished restoring everything from the gilded orb at its tip down to the 334 steps visitors climb to reach the bell, and the project has since been shortlisted for architecture’s Stirling Prize, the first conservation job ever nominated. Most people walking past never clock any of that. They just take a photo of the clock face and move on to the Abbey.

A Correction Before We Start

This trio of buildings sits in the City of Westminster, a separate local authority from the City of London a couple of miles east; the two get conflated constantly in guidebooks, but they’re distinct districts with their own governance, history, and character. Westminster grew up around the abbey and the royal palace; the City of London grew up around the medieval financial district. Keep them straight and the geography of a London itinerary makes a lot more sense.

The Palace of Westminster

The current Palace, home to the House of Commons and House of Lords, was built largely between 1840 and 1870 after a catastrophic 1834 fire destroyed most of the medieval palace that stood there before. Sir Charles Barry designed the neo-Gothic replacement, with the ornamental detailing handled by Augustus Pugin, whose fingerprints are on nearly every carved surface, tile pattern, and stained-glass window inside. The clock tower, officially renamed the Elizabeth Tower in 2012 for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, is what most people mean when they say Big Ben, though technically that name belongs only to the Great Bell inside.

That tower just came through a five-year restoration completed in the early 2020s, the most thorough conservation work it has undergone since it was built, and it earned a RIBA London Award in 2025 plus a Stirling Prize shortlisting the same year. Visiting the tower’s belfry requires a separate Big Ben tour booking, a climb of 334 steps, and a minimum age of 11. UK residents can request a free guided tour of the Palace itself through their MP, while everyone else books paid guided or audio tours through the official parliamentary ticketing site; slots for the guided tour fill up, so book ahead rather than assuming walk-up availability. Wider restoration of the rest of the Palace, a project that would require MPs and peers to temporarily relocate, has been debated for years without an agreed timeline as of early 2026, so parts of the building remain in variable states of repair behind the scenes even as tours continue.

Westminster Abbey

The Abbey is a working church, a coronation site, and a burial ground layered with nearly a thousand years of English history. Edward the Confessor built the first church on this site in the 11th century; the current Gothic structure dates mainly from a rebuilding that began under Henry III in the 1240s, making it the second major building phase rather than a third, and it has been added to and altered by successive monarchs since, including Henry VII’s spectacular fan-vaulted chapel added in the early 1500s.

Inside, look for the Coronation Chair, used at coronations since 1308, and Poets’ Corner, where writers from Chaucer to Dickens are memorialized or buried. As of 2026, standard adult admission runs around 31 pounds, with reduced rates for children, and opening hours vary by day, generally late morning to mid-afternoon on weekdays with an extended evening opening on Wednesdays; Sundays are reserved for services rather than sightseeing. A temporary VAT reduction on full-price tickets is scheduled to apply through the summer of 2026, so prices may dip slightly during that window. Booking ahead online is worth doing regardless of what any single source claims about walk-up availability, since demand spikes hard during the May-to-September season and around Easter and Christmas.

St. Margaret’s Church

Tucked beside the Abbey and easy to walk past without noticing, St. Margaret’s has a more tangled history than most visitors realize. The original medieval church fell into serious disrepair by the late 15th century and was almost entirely rebuilt starting in 1482, with the new structure consecrated in 1523. A further phase in the 1730s rebuilt the northwest tower and re-clad the whole exterior in Portland stone. The interior most visitors see today, however, dates largely to an 1878 restoration by the Victorian Gothic Revival architect Sir George Gilbert Scott, not Christopher Wren, who died decades before that renovation and had no hand in this building at all. The church took real bomb damage in the Blitz in 1941 and was quickly repaired afterward, aided significantly by American donations, a detail tied to its long role as the parish church of the House of Commons.

Dedicated to Saint Margaret of Antioch, the church still functions as the spiritual home for MPs and parliamentary staff, and its relative plainness next to the Abbey’s grandeur is part of the appeal; it’s one of the few genuinely quiet corners left in this stretch of Westminster. It’s generally open for services and during parliamentary recesses, though hours shift around the parliamentary calendar, so check locally rather than assuming standard opening times.

Practical Notes for Visiting All Three

Book Abbey and Parliament tickets online well before you travel, since both sites cap daily visitor numbers and same-day availability during peak season is unreliable at best. Security screening at all three sites is airport-style, so arrive with time to spare and expect bag restrictions similar to what you’d face at a UK airport. The whole complex is best tackled in a single loop on foot, starting at the Abbey in the morning before crowds build, moving to St. Margaret’s for a quieter interlude, and finishing at the Palace and Elizabeth Tower once you’ve built up patience for one more queue.