Queen Camilla has made a special solo visit to Westminster Abbey in London, days after the royals were rocked by another explosive interview given by Prince Harry
Queen Camilla joked there were “quite a lot of skeletons” under Westminster Abbey as she unveiled a new tribute to the King. The Queen revealed the Foundation Stone for the new King Charles III Sacristy on the north side of the Abbey, on the footprint of a medieval building.
Joining the Duke of Buccleuch today in removing a red cloth from the engraving, she told guests attending a ceremony to mark the occasion: “I just want to say how delighted I am to unveil this foundation stone. I can’t believe that last time I visited here that there is now a floor, last time I came, there were quite a lot of skeletons!”
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Excavations of the site uncovered the remains of monks, briefly halting works before they were covered with a protective layer to allow building work to resume. Camilla unveiled the stone during a ceremony attended by benefactors and supporters of the project, including its ambassador Alan Titchmarsh.
Camilla added: “I just hope that in 2026, when it is due to finish, that God willing, my husband and I will be back here again to open the King Charles III Sacristy.”
Speaking to the TV presenter, who she greeted with a kiss later, she said: “Hello Alan, it’s either in the garden or at Westminster Abbey – and Chelsea next week.” She again joked of her last visit to the Sacristy site in October last year, “It was full of skeletons, it was quite spooky, wasn’t it?”
Alan has been particularly connected to the Abbey since 2018, when he oversaw the addition to its cloister of a fountain to commemorate the 18th Century landscape gardener Capability Brown. On the Sacristy project, the presenter said: “You know what it’s like with a building project, as soon as you find bones, everything stopped.
“So it’s just such an exciting development, and the fact that it’s going to free up space in here, and put this back to a proper, fully functioning place of worship, just making the space available. I think it adds to the experience of coming in. The fact that everybody can come in [through the West Door, once the Sacristy project is open], It’s really special.”
Among guests at the ceremony were Princess Charlotte’s godfather Thomas van Straubenzee, a close friend of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and venture capitalist Matt Cohler.
Catherine Armitage, wife of hedge fund manager John, read the lesson, before an address by the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, who is High Steward of the Abbey.
The Duke told the Queen it was a “very special occasion” to have her present, adding: “The unveiling of a foundation stone [at the Abbey] by a member of the royal family has been recorded only on two occasions, by King Henry III 805 years ago, almost to the day on the 16th rather than the 14th of May, and then in 2016 when His Majesty unveiled the foundation stone of the Tower and the Jubilee Galleries.
The Sacristy will house new welcome, security and ticketing facilities, allowing the Abbey itself to be preserved as a sacred space. The sacristy building is being constructed on the footprint of the medieval Great Sacristy, built in the 1250s during Henry III’s reconstruction of the Abbey for monks to store vestments, altar linens, and other sacred items used in daily worship. It also played an important role in the life of the Abbey as a place for the formation of processions on church and state occasions.
Designed in sympathy with the Abbey’s Gothic architecture by architect Ptolemy Dean, the new building will reflect the history of the original by freeing the Abbey for worship and pilgrimage, and will once again serve as a gathering place on major state occasions.
After the service, the Queen went into the Abbey to meet staff, including the visitor and facilities and conservation teams, stopping to admire the recently updated memorial to the Brontë sisters. The distinctive dots over the ‘e’ were restored to ensure the authors are remembered in the way they themselves wrote their names.
Queen Camilla’s appearance comes days after Prince Harry gave yet another bombshell interview in which he spoke about his fractured relationship with his father, the King. Harry sat down with the BBC shortly after discovering he had lost his legal challenge over his security in the UK.
He divulged: “I don’t know how much longer my father has, he won’t speak to me because of this security stuff. It would be nice to reconcile.” He also suggested the King could have changed the outcome of his security case, claiming it felt like an “establishment stitch up”.
