J.R.R Tolkien is to be honoured in Westminster Abbey’s Poets Corner.
A memorial to the Catholic author will be unveiled next to his close friend C.S. Lewis at a dedication ceremony in Spring 2027, to coincide with the 90th anniversary of The Hobbit and the 50th anniversary of The Silmarillion.
Christian themes feature throughout Tolkien’s Middle-earth settings. In personal letters, he described The Lord of the Rings as a “fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision”.
Dean of Westminster, The Very Reverend Dr David Hoyle said: “We will remember here 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.”
Inspired by the Tree of Amalion, Tolkien’s tree of tales, the stone pillar rising to 2.5 meters high. It will be designed by Stephen Broadbent, including a piece of black pine from Oxford University
known as Tolkien’s Tree.
The idea for a memorial was first proposed by Lord Alton, Chairman of the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst, and supported by the Tolkien Estate.
More than 100 poets and writers are buried or have memorials in Poet’s Corner, including William Shakespeare, Jane Austen and John Milton.