Geoff Pugh
(Picture: Geoff Pugh for the Telegraph)Slowly and silently they came to Westminster Hall, some with tears in their eyes, to pay their final respects in person to the only Queen they had ever known.
The Queen’s closed coffin rests on a raised red platform in the middle of the 900-year-old hall, the oldest surviving building in the Palace of Westminster.
Thousands more from all over the world will come over the next few days.
The coffin is draped in the Royal Standard and topped with the Imperial State Crown, a wreath of white roses and the Sovereign’s orb and sceptre.
Ten palace guards and four police officers surround her.
A constant stream of mourners filed into the hall this morning to see the Queen lying in state under the striking hammer-beam timber roof.
Former prime minister Theresa May and leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt were among the mourners today.
Two rows on either side, three to four people wide, moved steadily down from the south entrance stairs and towards the ornate coffin. Some people paused momentarily to bow as they passed or as they exited through the north door. The visits take an average of three minutes.
Three times an hour the entire line pauses as the Life Guards and Grenadier Guards surrounding the coffin are changed.
The ceremony will continue 24 hours a day until 6.30am on Monday, before the state funeral begins.
Charles Abbott, 62, from Southend-on-Sea, queued for seven-and-a-half hours overnight and saw the Queen’s coffin shortly after 8am.
“You really feel the silence in the hall,” he said. “I’ve never felt anything like it. I can’t explain it, but you feel her presence.
“She’s provided such continuity throughout all of my life. Through many prime ministers, changes of relationships, she has been a constant. Always there. I think a lot of people here today feel that.
“The queue was over seven hours but it didn’t feel like that. There was a real sense of community.”
Mr Abbott’s wife Ana was wiping away tears as she exited the hall.
“I feel so grateful to have been able to see her one last time,” she said.
