CORONATION ANNEX

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26903, 2 December 1952, Page 6

CORONATION ANNEX

TEMPORARY ADDITION TO ABBEY

(From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON. November 21.

Westminster Abbey and the temporary annex where the Queen will enter for her Coronation and where the Grand Procession will assemble, will be opened for public inspection for about a month after the Coronation next June. Visitors will be able to see the special Coronation theatre and fittings erected in the Abbey for the ceremony. A small charge for admission will probably bb made by the Dean of the Chapter of Westminster, who will resume control of the Abbey after it passes out of the Earl Marshal’s hands on Coronation Day. Details of the annex, which will be built in the courtyard outside the west door of the Abbey, were given by the Minister of Works. Mr David Eccles, at a press conference. The annex, which will cost about £50,000. will have a steel tubing frame with a roof covered in asbestos and felt. The exterior walls will be made of timber and building board with a white spray finish. Her Majesty will enter the annex from her gold coach through an entrance built on to the side of the low modern building. The entrance will face across to the old Westminster Hospital site where some New Zealanders will be seated on a Crown stand.

Built in the shape of a tent the entrance will have a semi-circular transparent canopy over its steps and on its roof will have a large Royal shield. The whole structure will be covered by a blue saucer-shaped canpoy supported by six slender columns. The colour scheme will be blue and gold. The end wall of the annex facing toward Tothill street will have tall frosted glass windows emblazoned with Royal insignia and the arms and emblems of the Commonwealth countries painted in the bright colours of heraldry. A line of nine sculptured statues six feet in height will be placed in front of the emblems. The statues represent the Queen’s heraldic beasts—the Lion of England, the Unicorn of Scotland, the Falcon of the Plantagenets. the Griffin of Edward II the Bull of Clarence, the White Lion of Mortimer, the Greyhound and Dragon of the Tudors, the Yale of the Beauforts. and the White Horse of Hanover Flowers and plants from Commonwealth countries will also be placed around the annex. Work on the building will start after Christmas.