Note 377 — A BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY (continued 3)
Reading edition
At an earlier time the Abbey had been free to sight-seers, but a wanton injury to the figure of George Washington in Major André’s monument had led to the imposition of admission fees. Not long after Smith’s encounter, Charles Lamb wrote his protest against these fees, of which he says: “In no part of our beloved Abbey now can a person find entrance (out of service time) under the sum of two shillings.” Lamb’s complaint may have been rather overstrained by reason of its incorporation in his bitter letter to Southey in the London Magazine for October 1823.
Free admission was given to the larger part of the Abbey under Dean Ireland. Authorised guides were first appointed in 1826, and the nave and transepts were opened, and the fees lowered in 1841 at the suggestion of Lord John Thynne (Dean Stanley: Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey).