Walk description

The origins of today's City of Westminster can be dated to the year 1065 when King Edward the Confessor decided to build a palace and an abbey church on Thorney Island, a piece of marshy ground upstream from the City of London. The palace attracted the nobility, while the Abbey brought pilgrims to the shrine of Edward the Confessor and soon there was a bustling village on the banks of the River Thames. But the Abbey also gave sanctuary to fugitives who began to gather in the surrounding area and Westminster soon gained a reputation as one of the most lawless parts of London."