<P> Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, is a large, mainly Gothic abbey church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster . It is one of the United Kingdom's most notable religious buildings and the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English and, later, British monarchs . The building itself was a Benedictine monastic church until the monastery was dissolved in 1539 . Between 1540 and 1556, the abbey had the status of a cathedral . Since 1560, the building is no longer an abbey or a cathedral, having instead the status of a Church of England "Royal Peculiar"--a church responsible directly to the sovereign . </P> <P> According to a tradition first reported by Sulcard in about 1080, a church was founded at the site (then known as Thorn Ey (Thorn Island)) in the seventh century, at the time of Mellitus, a Bishop of London . Construction of the present church began in 1245, on the orders of King Henry III . </P> <P> Since the coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066, all coronations of English and British monarchs have been in Westminster Abbey . There have been at least 16 royal weddings at the abbey since 1100 . Two were of reigning monarchs (Henry I and Richard II), although, before 1919, there had been none for some 500 years . </P> <P> A late tradition claims that Aldrich, a young fisherman on the River Thames, has a vision of Saint Peter near the site . This seems to have been quoted as the origin of the salmon that Thames fishermen offered to the abbey in later years--a custom still observed annually by the Fishmongers' Company . The recorded origins of the Abbey date to the 960s or early 970s, when Saint Dunstan and King Edgar installed a community of Benedictine monks on the site . </P>

Who was the first king to be crowned in westminster abbey