The most usual way to enter the church is by the north doorway, but the
more convenient trysting-place is the west end of the nave. Our purpose
in the following pages is to picture a morning spent in the Abbey with a
party of tourists, who have been collected in a somewhat haphazard manner
before a start is made, and are now assembled beneath the statue of the
younger Pitt. Although the majority are probably of British and American
nationality with a sprinkling no doubt of our colonial brothers, in the
minority will very likely be found more than one stranger from the West
or from the East, perchance even a coloured man. But as we pass along
the aisles, now one, now another, whatever his nationality, is sure to be
reminded by some grave or monument of his own country, and we shall hope
to awaken {22} the interest of all alike. Before a start is made we
would recall the memory of Dr. Bradley, who made it one of his chief
duties and pleasures to show people round the church he loved so well,
thus following a custom set by Stanley, and continued by the present Dean
and his colleagues. Royal princes, distinguished foreigners, tourists
from every part of the world, working men and women, and his own friends,
all were equally welcome to Westminster Abbey. On every Saturday during
the spring and early summer the late Dean made fixed engagements to take
parties round, and on the Bank holidays was rarely absent from the Abbey,
but held himself ever ready to help the chance sightseer and show him
places which are not easily accessible to the public. His ground plans
of the church and its precincts were hung up in the Jerusalem Chamber on
the days when he expected parties, and here, before beginning their
round, he would tell his eager listeners something of the general history
of the foundation. After that the Dean used to lead the way into the
building itself, by the little door beneath the Abbot's Pew, and show
them all the most notable tombs and monuments. He now lies at rest
beneath the very stones which his feet so often passed over on {23} these
happy Saturday afternoons, close to the vault of an eighteenth-century
Dean, whose heart was broken by his banishment from the Deanery, and of
whom we shall have occasion to speak later.
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[Illustration: The Interior of the Nave, Looking East]
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