Events at Westminster Abbey
A producer’s view
Events at Westminster Abbey
Working in Westminster Abbey is a privilege bestowed on a few selected suppliers. We have held a place on that list since 2014.
- Where
- Dean’s YardWestminster, central London
- Reception
- Up to 850Or 1,000 standing across the spaces
- Seated dining
- Up to 240On round tables. Up to 80 on long tables
- Spaces for hire
- FiveThe Cloisters, College Garden, the Galleries, the Cellarium and its Terrace
- On the Abbey’s list
- The only one in creative and designAnd on the list since 2014
Spaces as published by Westminster Abbey. Capacities and the supplier categories as published by Unique Venues of London.
On the Abbey’s list for more than a decade
It is a short list and the Abbey is careful about who is on it.
Which means the first conversation is about your event. The Abbey already knows how we work in the building.
The list is organised by trade — caterers, florists, audio and visual, entertainment. We are the only name under creative and design.
Three from the last decade, and they look nothing alike
Four constructed food trucks in the Cloisters. A village of drawn shop fronts on the College Garden lawn. A formal party in gilt and deep colour. A guest at one of them would not have recognised the other two.
One · the Cloisters
Four food trucks, built into a Gothic cloister
The Premier League closes each season with a party for everyone who made the championship happen. What they did not want was a drinks reception and canapés. They wanted food from around the football world, served properly, and they wanted it in the Cloisters.
So we turned the Cloister into a cobbled street. Four trucks — USA, Mexico, Shanghai and London — no two the same size or style, each one built to the contours of the Cloister so it sat inside the stained-glass window behind it.
The Borough Market stand served mini fish and chips, Yorkshire puddings with rare roast beef, chorizo scotch eggs and sausage rolls. The Beijing truck served Szechuan ramen, bao buns and Peking duck pancakes.
And a lounge that was not there that morning
The client wanted a reveal, so we kept an adjoining Cloister back and turned it into a cocktail lounge while the guests were on their tour of the Abbey. Antiques, books, fabric and sculpture, put together so it read like a hidden room in the Abbey grounds that somebody had finally found.
It went in while they were on the tour, and it was gone before the vans left.
Two · College Garden, in daylight
A paper village on the lawn
Primary Capital’s summer party took place outside, in College Garden. We built a village for it — shop fronts drawn in black line on white, a post office, a sweet shop, planted tubs and bunting strung between them, with the food laid out on hessian under the trees.
This is the same address as the Cloisters, in daylight and on grass. The Abbey stands behind the party here, not over it.
Three · the Cloisters, formal
A private client, and a great deal of gilt
Gilded urns on plinths either side of a Gothic doorway, floral cascades down the steps, and the stone washed pink and magenta instead of warm. This one was formal, and the Abbey does formal without any help from us.
What a Grade 1 listed building asks of you
Read this before you fall in love with an idea.
It is always our responsibility, as custodians of these landmark venues, to protect the fabric of the building, its grounds and foundations. So when a brand asks for something that challenges the status quo, we become excited rather than nervous.
The Mexico truck shows what that means in practice. Wood and papier mâché with a painted finish and acrylic resin panels, on a CLS framework, standing on protective rubber matting so the floor and the stone were never touched. The other three were made the same way, detailed to suit what they served.
Nothing is ever fixed to the building. It stands on its own feet or it does not go in.
The whole street went up in forty-five minutes
The Abbey closes to the public, and the first guests arrive three quarters of an hour later. Four trucks, a lounge, the bars and the whole service have to be standing and working by then.
Nobody thinks about that window until they are standing in it. So we do not design anything for this building until we know how it gets in, how it goes together and how fast it comes apart again.
Where the money actually goes
Everyone quotes the hire figure. The number that actually moves is how much has to be made from scratch, and here that is usually most of it. Very little off the shelf fits a cloister.
How to budget for an immersive experience sets out how the money divides.
What people ask us about the Abbey
Can you hold a private event at Westminster Abbey?
Yes, through a small number of approved suppliers. We have held a place on that list since 2014.
Which spaces can be used?
The Cloisters and College Garden are the two we know best, and between them they give you an indoor stone vault and an open lawn. Every photograph on this page was taken in one or the other.
Is a heritage venue restrictive?
It has rules and they are clear. Nothing fixed to the fabric, everything freestanding, everything out again. We built four food trucks inside those rules.
Can an experience here be outdoors?
Yes. College Garden takes a summer party properly — we have built a village of shop fronts on that lawn, with lunch under the trees.
Do you work anywhere else like this?
Yes. We are an accredited event partner to Waddesdon Manor and to LSO St Luke’s, among other heritage and cultural venues.
Start with what you want them to walk into
Tell us what you want your guests to find when they come through the door. One call is usually enough to say whether the Abbey will take it.
