Cookie policy

Last updated 14 August 2026. This policy describes the small amount of local storage these pages use, the external font request they make, and what is deliberately absent: advertising and cross-site tracking. Westminster Abbey and other venues named in our articles publish their own documents, and those govern any arrangement you make with them.

The short version

This site sets no advertising cookies, runs no analytics that identify you, and does not share reading behaviour with third parties. What it does use is a small amount of local storage in your own browser, plus a request to a third-party font service. That is the whole picture for a Westminster Abbey editorial desk that has no reason to watch you read about vaults.

What is stored on your device

Two items may be written to your browser's local storage. The first records that you have dismissed the consent banner, so that it does not reappear on every page. The second holds a draft copy of anything you typed into the contact form, so that a mistyped address does not cost you the whole message about hours or sequence. Both stay on your device. Neither is transmitted to us as part of ordinary browsing.

Local storage is not technically a cookie, but it does the same job from your point of view, so we describe it here rather than hiding behind the distinction.

Strictly necessary processing

Serving these pages requires the ordinary technical exchange between your browser and our host, including your IP address and the page you requested. That processing is strictly necessary to deliver the site and to protect it from abuse, and it does not require consent under UK PECR as we apply it here.

Web fonts

Typography on this site uses Source Serif 4 and Plus Jakarta Sans loaded from a third-party font service. That request discloses your IP address and basic technical data to the provider. If you prefer to avoid it, browser extensions can block external font requests; the pages remain fully readable with a system font substituted, and no fan-vault argument depends on the download.

What is absent on purpose

No advertising pixels. No cross-site tracking. No behavioural profiling of readers. No embedded social widgets that phone home from every page. Where we quote a visitor comment, it arrived by email with permission rather than being harvested from a review platform.

Managing your choices

You can clear site data at any time through your browser settings, which removes the consent record and any saved form draft. Blocking local storage entirely is possible; the only consequence is that the consent banner reappears on each visit. Private browsing windows discard both items when the window closes.

Third-party pages we link to

Official Abbey pages, other venues and public registers set their own cookies under their own policies. When you follow a link from an article, that organisation's rules apply, not ours. Reading a page here does not create any relationship with a venue we describe.

Server logs and how long they last

Our host keeps standard access logs: the requesting address, the page requested, the response code, a timestamp and a user agent string. Those records exist so that an outage can be diagnosed and abusive traffic can be blocked. They are retained for a short operational period, typically counted in weeks, and they are not combined with enquiry correspondence to build a reader profile.

We do not run a log-based analytics dashboard that reconstructs individual reading sessions. What we want to know about these pages — whether a brief answers the sequence question it promises to answer — arrives by email.

Browser signals and privacy settings

Because there is no advertising or cross-site tracking on this site, signals such as Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control have nothing to switch off here. We honour them in the only way available: by not collecting the data they are designed to restrict. Content blockers, strict cookie settings and private windows all work normally against these pages, and nothing is hidden behind a consent wall.

Embedded content and media

Images on this site are served from this domain rather than from a third-party image host, and there are no embedded video players, maps or social timelines that would load code from elsewhere. If an article ever needs an external embed, this policy will name it before the embed appears, along with what the provider receives.

Local storage in practice: a worked example

Suppose you read the fan-vault hour page, dismiss the consent banner, then start writing an enquiry about a school visit in May and close the tab halfway through. Two items now sit in your browser: a short string recording the dismissal, and a draft of the fields you filled in. Nothing has reached us. If you return the next day, the banner stays away and the draft is offered back to you. Clearing site data removes both, and the only visible consequence is a banner on your next visit.

Changes

If we add anything that stores data on your device, this page is updated first and the consent banner is revised accordingly. The current version is dated 14 August 2026. Related reading: the privacy notice and the terms of use. Privacy requests: [email protected].