Crown and Coronation

The show will feature stunning imagery, in exquisite detail, spanning across the centuries. Visitors will journey through more than 1000 years of history, encompassing the reigns of some of the most famous English monarchs including William the Conqueror, Elizabeth I, and Queen Victoria. Just like medieval and Tudor rulers, visitors will be swept up in the spectacle of the coronation procession.

Image: Crown & Coronation at the Tower of London.  © His Majesty King Charles III 2023 -Royal Collection Trust – Historic Royal Palaces.

This light show launches just months after the world witnessed the Crown Jewels in use at a Coronation for the first time in 70 years. Hundreds of people gathered inside Winchester Cathedral to watch the live stream of King Charles III’s Coronation, and there wasn’t an empty seat for the Service of Thanksgiving.

When you walk past the Old Minster to enter the cathedral, you’ll be walking past the very place that  Edward the Confessor’s Coronation took place (by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York on Easter day, 3rd April 1043). When you’re inside the cathedral, watching the projections on the cathedral’s historic ‘Great Screen’ you’ll be standing in the steps of Queen Mary I (Mary Tudor) and Prince Philip II of Spain on their wedding day in 1554. Look up in the Quire, and you’ll see mortuary chests, containing the bones of Kings and Queens.

Photo credits: Photos by Luxmuralis. Created by the Luxmuralis artistic collaboration, Peter Walker Sculptor and David Harper Composer, in partnership with Historic Royal Palaces. In association with the Royal Collection Trust.