May 02, (THEWILL) – King Charles III and his wife, Queen Consort Camilla, will be using a 700-year-old chair during their formal coronation ceremony on May 6.
This was contained in the details released by Buckingham Palace ahead of the ceremony.
It was revealed that the king will use the oldest surviving piece of furniture as part of tradition for the coronation ceremony.
Paintings Conservator at Westminster Abbey in London, Krista Blessley, has spent weeks trying to give the incredibly fragile coronation chair, also known as St. Edwards Chair, a makeover.
“Built in 1309, the six-and-a-half-foot tall throne made of Baltic oak has been used for every coronation of an English monarch, with a few exceptions since then,” Blessley said.
She said a lot of the renovation work involved sticking the layers of gilding back down and making sure it is completely sound before the coronation.
Buckingham Palace also revealed that St Edward’s Chair would be used, as it has been for centuries, for the moment of crowning on Saturday.
The late Queen Elizabeth II, Charles’ mother, was the last person to use the coronation chair for her coronation ceremony in 1953. But then, the world watched in black and white, so Blessley wanted to make sure the thrones’ colours shone through this year.
Preparations for Saturday’s coronation are at a fever pitch with various parts of Central London decorated with the Union Jack flag.
At the Oxford Street and Regent Street junction, emblems of the May 6 historic event, the first in 70 years, were sandwiched between the rows of five Union Jack flags on display near Oxford Circus station.
