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Visitors to London tend to head for Westminster Abbey for two reasons: it’s the abbey of coronations and royal weddings, and it’s stuffed full of royal tombs. But this venerable building is also a gigantic cabinet of curiosities. Here, you can run your hand over Britain’s oldest door, stand beneath the most spectacular fan-vaulted ceiling in existence or ogle Elizabeth I’s corset. Amongst these, and a plethora of other delights, lies the Abbey’s most prec­ious jewel: the Cosmati pavement before the high altar.

Concealed from view for over a century, this extraordinary carpet of marble, semi-precious stone and glass has recently been cleaned and restored.