To honor the historic connection between America's National Churchill Museum at Westminster College and the United Kingdom, the bells of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, will ring a celebratory peal for two minutes at 11 a.m. CDT on Saturday, May 6, 2023.
The Museum will join churches and civic buildings in the United Kingdom to mark the Coronation of King Charles III, who will be crowned at Westminster Abbey in London, England.
The historic church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, was designed in the 1670s by Royal Architect Sir Christopher Wren under the reign of King Charles II. The church was badly damaged in 1940, during the Second World War. The ruined church stood in London for over 20 years before it was carefully dismantled and moved to Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where it was re-hallowed in 1969 as a memorial to Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech.
Today the church is the centerpiece of America's National Churchill Museum and stands as a symbol of the peace and the strong and historic ties between the United States and the United Kingdom.
In 2019, King Charles (then Prince of Wales) wrote a congratulatory letter to America's National Churchill Museum at Westminster College on the occasion of the Museum's 50th Anniversary.
“Leave the past to history especially as I propose to write that history myself.”
