Over the years, the chair has worn out.
London:
The historic coronation chair that Henry VIII and other British and later British monarchs have crowned for some 700 years will be given a makeover ahead of this year’s ceremony for King Charles, London’s Westminster Abbey has said.
Charles and his wife, Queen Consort Camilla, will be officially crowned on May 6 in a solemn religious ceremony at the Abbey, the site of the coronation of kings and queens throughout the past thousand years. .
The focal point of the ceremony was the crown placed on the head of the monarch seated in an oak chair, originally inlaid with gold leaf and ornate with stained glass.
Charles will follow in the footsteps of some of his famous predecessors, such as King Henry VIII, Queen Victoria and his mother Elizabeth II, when crowned in this chair.
“This is the oldest surviving piece of furniture still in use for its original purpose,” said Krista Blessley, Conservator of Paintings at the Abbey.
The coronation chair was made by order of King Edward I to include the Stone of Scone, or Stone of Destiny, which has been used for the coronation of Scottish kings for centuries. Edward brought down the Stone from Scotland in 1296.
It has appeared in coronation ceremonies since 1308, and has been the chair used to crown kings since Henry IV in 1399, the Abbey said.
Over the years, the chair has worn out, especially by local boys in Westminster and tourists in the 18th and 19th centuries. One guest engraved the words “P. Abbott slept in the chair.” this chair on July 5-6, 1800″ on the chair.
A bombing in 1914, allegedly organized by the Suffragettes, also knocked down a small corner of it. Its base, which features a lion in each corner, was also replaced in the 18th century.
Meanwhile, Scottish nationalists captured the Stone of Scone on 25 December 1950 before it was restored a few months later. The stone was returned to Scotland in 1996 and is kept at Edinburgh Castle but will return to London for the coronation.
The latest conservation work will focus on cleaning the surface with sponges and cotton swabs to remove dirt, while stabilizing the layers of gilding left on the medieval chair and stand.
“The coronation chair is extremely fragile. It has a complex multi-layered structure, which means the gold plating on it often peels off,” says Blessley. “So a lot of my work at the moment is to glue those layers of gilding and make sure it’s completely solid for the coronation.”
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
Featured video of the day
On camera, Bihar police pull, arrest dead soldier’s father in Galwan
