Tolkien Memorial Coming to Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner

Westminster Abbey is to commemorate J.R.R. Tolkien in Poets’ Corner, and the memorial will be dedicated in spring 2027. The Abbey announced it on Monday 21 September. Tolkien will be honoured, in the Abbey’s words, “alongside his close friend and fellow writer, C.S. Lewis”.

This is not a floor stone of the kind most Poets’ Corner names get. It is a large piece of commissioned artwork, and the Abbey says it will be:

• inlaid vertically within a stone pillar in the south transept
• 2.5 metres high
• made predominantly from native woods found in the UK
• based on the imagery of a tree in a forest
• inspired by Tolkien’s Tree of Tales, which he called the Tree of Amalion

The dedication year was chosen. Spring 2027 falls in the 90th anniversary year of The Hobbit, published in 1937, and the 50th anniversary year of The Silmarillion.

A piece of Tolkien’s own tree is going into it

The material is the detail worth knowing. The Abbey says the memorial will include a piece of the black pine felled from Oxford University’s Botanic Garden in 2014, the tree known as “Tolkien’s tree”. It was a Pinus nigra, and the Abbey says it was a favourite of Tolkien during his time in Oxford.

The Botanic Garden’s own account matches that. It says the historic Black Pine split in two in 2014 and the entire tree had to be felled, that it was “possibly as old as 215 years”, and that the Garden kept and seasoned the wood afterwards. The Garden’s director, Professor Simon Hiscock, called it “the legendary Black Pine which was an iconic feature of the Garden for so many years”, and said it is “better known as Tolkien’s Pine”.

The Garden has used the salvaged wood before. It made 30 numbered commemorative boxes from it for a limited edition whisky produced with The Oxford Artisan Distillery. The Abbey memorial puts a piece of the same tree into the fabric of a building in Westminster.

Who is making it

The commission went to Broadbent Studio in Chester, led by the artist Stephen Broadbent, after what the Abbey describes as a competitive process. The Abbey says Broadbent has a 40-year background in public art projects, and that the final design concept was informed by discussions with Tolkien scholars and experts and by consultation with the Tolkien Estate.

The making is being done by a team of designers, engineers and artisans from Silverlining Furniture in Wrexham.

Broadbent described the intended effect. “The artwork will present to the viewer the sense of peering into another world: a ‘Forest of Stories’, with Tolkien’s remarkable ‘Tree of Tales’ accepted into the heart of it. Then through this magical forest there is an evocative glimpse to a land beyond.”

The Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle, said he was delighted “both that there will be a memorial to J.R.R. Tolkien in the Abbey and that the memorial will be a thing of beauty”. He added that the Abbey would be remembering “a master storyteller, a scholar, a man with a Christian imagination and a writer who helped some of us understand that a commitment to life and virtue might be costly and courageous”.

The idea was put in public almost six years ago

The Abbey credits the idea to Lord Alton, in his role as Chairman of the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst, and says it was made possible through the support and generosity of the Tolkien Estate.

Alton put the case publicly on his own website on 12 November 2020. He asked whether it was time the Abbey “celebrated the life of JRR Tolkien in Poet’s Corner, perhaps next to his friend and fellow writer and Oxford professor, C.S.Lewis”, and wrote that Tolkien’s place there was “long overdue”. The announcement, nearly six years later, grants exactly the request he made, including the link to Lewis.

The first writer commemorated at the Abbey since 2019

Poets’ Corner is in the south transept, and the Abbey says more than 100 poets and writers are buried or have memorials there. It is the Deans of Westminster who decide who receives a place, on merit, though the Abbey says they consult widely.

The Abbey names its most recent memorials to poets and writers as Ted Hughes, C.S. Lewis, Philip Larkin and P.G. Wodehouse. Its own commemoration records date three of them:

• C.S. Lewis, stone unveiled in Poets’ Corner on 22 November 2013, the fiftieth anniversary of his death
• Philip Larkin, stone unveiled in Poets’ Corner on 2 December 2016, cut by Martin Jennings in Purbeck Down vein marble
• P.G. Wodehouse, tablet unveiled on 20 September 2019, though in the south quire aisle rather than Poets’ Corner

Of the memorials the Abbey names as its most recent, Wodehouse’s in September 2019 is the latest of any, and Larkin’s in December 2016 the latest inside Poets’ Corner itself. On that record, Tolkien’s will be the first writer commemorated at the Abbey in seven years.

What it means for you

Nothing is there to see yet. The dedication ceremony is set for spring 2027 and the Abbey has not published a date, so a visit made now will find the pillar as it is.

When it is in place, it will sit in the part of the Abbey that most visitors already walk through. Poets’ Corner is covered by general admittance, which on the Abbey’s published prices for 2 to 30 September 2026 costs:

• £31 for an adult
• £28 for over-65s and students
• £14 for a child aged 6 to 17
• free for children under 6 and for Abbey Association members

A lower rate applied between 25 June and 1 September 2026 under the government’s temporary VAT reduction, and that period has now ended.

There is a free route in. Evensong is listed at 5pm on weekdays and 3pm on Saturdays, and the Abbey says “everyone is welcome at these services, free of charge”, with security checks on entry. Services are held in the Quire rather than the transept, so this is a way into the building rather than a way to stand in front of the memorial at leisure.

Expect company. The Association of Leading Visitor Attractions recorded 1,610,182 visits to Westminster Abbey in 2025, making it the 18th most visited attraction in the UK that year, though the figure was 6% down on 2024.

For getting there, see our guide to Westminster tube and train times, and for what else is on locally, things to do in Westminster.

Sources

• Westminster Abbey: Abbey to honour J.R.R. Tolkien, 21 September 2026, for the announcement, the spring 2027 dedication, the anniversaries, the design, the 2.5 metre height, the south transept pillar, the woods used, the Tree of Amalion, Broadbent Studio and Silverlining, the Tolkien Estate, Lord Alton’s role and the quotations from the Dean and Stephen Broadbent.
• Oxford Botanic Garden: Black Pine Whisky, for the 2014 felling, the tree’s possible age of 215 years, the seasoning of the wood and Professor Simon Hiscock’s quotation.
• Lord Alton: High Time That J.R.R.Tolkien Was Celebrated In Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey, 12 November 2020, for his public call and its wording.
• Westminster Abbey commemoration records for C.S. Lewis, Philip Larkin and P.G. Wodehouse, for the unveiling dates and locations.
• Westminster Abbey: Poets’ Corner, for the more than 100 poets and writers commemorated and how places are decided.
• Westminster Abbey: opening times and prices, for the admission rates and the VAT reduction period.
• Westminster Abbey: Evensong, for the service times and free admission.
• ALVA 2025 visitor figures, for the 1,610,182 visits, the rank of 18 and the 6% fall.