The Line for People to Pay Their Respects to the Queen Is Currently Over 4 Miles Long
That's... a lot of miles.
It's not hard to see how much Queen Elizabeth II meant to Britons and royal fans around the world in the aftermath of her passing.
But nothing makes it quite as clear as the line—affectionately dubbed "The Queue"—that has formed for people who wish to pay their respects to the late monarch during her period of lying in state at Westminster Hall in London.
Those who wish to do so have been able to since Sept. 14 at 5 p.m. local time and will be able to until Sept. 19 at 6:30 a.m.
For a country that prides itself on its love of "queueing," this particular line is an achievement: It comes with very British orderliness, toilets, water points, first aid stations, its own website, and a live tracker for those who wish to join the line (or are extremely fascinated by it).
At time of writing, the queue has reached a whopping 4.3 miles long, and even comes with its own What3Words location so that people can find the end of it. The line is capped at 10 miles if need be, per the BBC.
As many as 750,000 people are expected to come pay their respects, according to Reuters, and people are spending hours in the queue, some even spending the night there, while it moves constantly.
A 91-year-old woman named Joan Bradshaw spoke to the BBC about why she came, 70 years after she did the same for Elizabeth's father, King George VI.
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"I just wanted to be there. Same as I wanted to be here," Bradshaw said.
"I can’t remember much. But it was completely different. It wasn’t so crowded.
"That’s made such a big queue—people coming from all over the world."
She observed, "It was big [in 1952], but nowhere near as big as it is now."
When she reaches the end of the queue, Bradshaw will be able to see the Queen's coffin up close, with its adornments and crown lying on top of it.
"I shall be very happy to see her, because it’s not the same watching on television. You need to be amongst the people to get the feeling inside," she said.
Iris Goldsztajn is a London-based journalist, editor and author. She is the morning editor at Marie Claire, and her work has appeared in the likes of British Vogue, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Refinery29 and SELF. Iris writes about everything from celebrity news and relationship advice to the pitfalls of diet culture and the joys of exercise. She has many opinions on Harry Styles, and can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.
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