Westminster Abbey

You are walking toward a building that is not actually an abbey, but a royal peculiar. This status means the church does not fall under the authority of any bishop or archbishop, as it answers directly to the British monarch. The name is a centuries-old holdover from its origins as a Benedictine monastery founded in the tenth century on a small, marshy piece of land known as Thorney Island, which once sat in the middle of the River Thames.