St Paul’s and St Peter’s are famed for their spectacular domes, and Florence Cathedral is regarded as a wonder of Renaissance architecture.

At Westminster Abbey, though, where kings and queens are crowned, poets are buried and martyrs commemorated, only a “stubby little tower” marks its centuries of glory.

Now the Dean and Chapter of the abbey are hoping to build a £10 million “crowning feature”. The new corona is likely to be the most dramatic addition to the London skyline since the Swiss Re building, known as the Gherkin, opened in 2004.

The corona is part of a £23 million development plan that will involve a huge fundraising campaign if it wins approval from several regulatory bodies. The public will be consulted on the design of the corona, which will replace the lantern, a small, plain concrete, pyramid roof above the crossing that stands in front of the high altar where every monarch has been crowned for the past thousand years.

The work would be the first at the medieval abbey for 250 years. Private discussions have been held already with Buckingham Palace.

The intention is to create a gilded structure, which is likely to be composed in part of wood, glass and lead, in time for the Diamond Jubilee of the Queen’s Coronation in June 2013. The Prince of Wales could become the first monarch to be crowned beneath it.

Since being rebuilt by Henry III in the 13th century, the abbey has had frequent additions by great architects including Sir Christopher Wren, Nicholas Hawksmoor and George Gilbert Scott, and several architects over the centuries have drawn up plans for possible structures where a tower, dome or spire might stand. These plans will be on display in an exhibition that opens today in the Chapter House and is free to visitors.

Like the Roman Catholic cathedral at the other end of Victoria Street, the abbey was never properly finished.

The Dean, the Very Rev John Hall, told The Times that he was not necessarily opposed to a modern design that was in keeping with the overall architecture of the abbey. He said: “If you look at all the great churches, there is a dome, tower or spire. The crossing is the place for that sort of distinction. All we have got is a stubby little tower.

“There will, of course, be some people who say, ‘Don’t change our skyline after all this time.’ But what we’re hoping to demonstrate to people is how the abbey has scarcely stood still in its long history.”

The Dean and Chapter also propose to open up the upper gallery, known as the triforium, for a museum and exhibition area that will show many more of the historic treasures and artefacts than can be displayed at present.

A lift will be built in a discreet corner on the abbey’s south face behind Poets’ Corner. There are also plans for an education centre for children and a refectory in the cellarium, to be called the Cellarium Café, to provide improved refreshments for the million visitors who come to the abbey each year.

Dr Hall said: “Westminster Abbey is recognised by people in every part of the world. Royal weddings and funerals have all attracted huge television audiences, as did the Queen’s Coronation in 1953, the first to be televised live. It is an odd accident of history that, where so many great churches have a magnificent tower or spire or dome, the abbey remains unfinished over the site of every coronation since that of William the Conqueror on Christmas Day 1066. Now is the time to consider afresh what should be built there.”

Crowning glory

More than 760 years after Henry III commissioned it, Westminster Abbey looks as if it will finally receive its finishing touch. It is best not to rush these things (Valentine Low writes).

The construction of a corona is probably the one major building project in London where one can be certain that the Prince of Wales is unlikely to contest. He has already been advised of the Abbey’s plans, and seeing how he is in line to be the first king crowned under the new corona, they are not going to go ahead with anything that does not receive his wholehearted approval.

The completion date for the corona is 2013, which means that it will be completed in a shorter time than any other works in the Abbey’s history. Henry III devoted nearly 30 years of his life to rebuilding the abbey, spending £45,000 of his own money, the equivalent of millions today, but by the time he died in 1272 the nave was only partly completed. His son, Edward I, was more interested in raising funds for wars than for churches, so work on the abbey paused. When construction began again a century later, the man in charge, Abbot Nicholas Litlyngton, insisted on sticking to the plans of Henry III’s master mason, which is why a church built over more than 150 years has architectural unity.

Henry VII added the Lady Chapel at the start of the 16th century, but no sooner was it completed than his successor, Henry VIII, announced the dissolution of the monasteries. Henry VIII had a soft spot for the abbey, though, and had it redesignated as a cathedral.

There was still the vexing question of how to finish it. Sir Christopher Wren, who started the abbey’s west towers, suggested a tower with a 12-sided spire on top, but the idea was rejected because it would have been too heavy. His pupil, Nicholas Hawksmoor, who finished the west towers, and George Gilbert Scott, who remodelled the north side in the 19th century, both had a go, too, although neither of their plans came to fruition. Perhaps the abbey will get lucky this time.