St. Margaret, Westminster
| St Margaret's, Westminster | |
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St Margaret's Church, Westminster, with the Elizabeth Tower of the Palace of Westminster in the background.
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| Location | City of Westminster, London, UK |
| Coordinates | 51°30′00″N 00°07′37″W / 51.50000°N 0.12694°WCoordinates: 51°30′00″N 00°07′37″W / 51.50000°N 0.12694°W |
| Founded | 12th Century |
| Rebuilt | 1486 to 1523 |
| Official name: Palace of Westminster, Westminster Abbey and Saint Margaret's Church | |
| Type | Cultural |
| Criteria | i, ii, iv |
| Designated | 1987 (11th session) |
| Reference no. | 426 |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Region | Europe and North America |
 Location of St. Margaret, Westminster Abbey in central London
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The Church of St Margaret, Westminster Abbey, is situated in the grounds of Westminster Abbey on Parliament Square, and is the Anglican parish church of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in London. It is dedicated to Margaret of Antioch.
The church forms part of a single World Heritage Site, with the Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey.
The church was founded in the twelfth century by Benedictine monks, so that local people who lived in the area around the Abbey could worship separately at their own simpler parish church, and historically it was within the hundred of Ossulstone in the county of Middlesex. In 1914, in a preface to Memorials of St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, a former Rector of St Margaret's, Dr Hensley Henson, reported a mediaeval tradition that the church was as old as Westminster Abbey, owing its origins to the same royal saint, and that "The two churches, conventual and parochial, have stood side by side for more than eight centuries — not, of course, the existing fabrics, but older churches of which the existing fabrics are successors on the same site."
St Margaret's was rebuilt from 1486 to 1523, at the instigation of King Henry VII, and the new church, which largely still stands today, was consecrated on 9 April 1523. It has been called "the last church in London decorated in the Catholic tradition before the Reformation", and on each side of a large rood there stood richly painted statues of St Mary and St John, while the building had several internal chapels. In the 1540s, the new church came near to demolition, when Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, planned to take it down to provide good-quality materials for Somerset House, his own new palace in the Strand. He was only kept from carrying out his plan by the resistance of armed parishioners.
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