The casket was manufactured by the same specialist firm that produced the Duke of Edinburgh’s coffin
Queen Elizabeth’s coffin was made more than 30 years ago by the same firm that made the lead-lined casket in which the Duke of Edinburgh lies interred.
Royal coffins are traditionally made from well-seasoned oak from the Sandringham estate, but precise details about the manufacture of the late Queen’s coffin are thought to have been lost in the decades since it was ordered.
The lead-lined casket - which is effectively a coffin within a coffin - was made by the specialist firm Henry Smith, which closed in 2005 and which also made the Duke of Edinburgh's coffin, as well as those of celebrities including Diana Dors, Freddie Mercury and Jimi Hendrix.
The brass handles and other fitments, which include clasps to hold the Imperial State Crown, orb and sceptre in place when they are placed on the coffin for the lying in state, are thought to have been made by the Birmingham foundry Newman Brothers, which is no longer in business.
Until the 1990s, the casket was maintained by the London-based funeral director JH Kenyon Ltd, which handled the funerals of King George VI in 1952 and Winston Churchill in 1965.
When another London firm, Leverton and Sons, took over responsibility for royal funerals in 1991, the Queen’s coffin was passed on to the company, which has little detail about when or how it was made other than that it was before that year.
Andrew Leverton, who runs the family business, told The Times in 2018: “It is made from English oak, which is very difficult to get hold of. Oak coffins are now made from American oak. I don’t think we could use English oak for a coffin now. It would be too expensive.”
The coffin has to be lined with lead because the Queen will be interred in the King George VI Memorial Vault, rather than given a traditional burial. It is so heavy that it requires eight pallbearers, rather than the usual six.
Henry Smith made coffins using a method called lead shell and case, in which a simple inner coffin is made of wood, covered in lead and then placed inside an outer coffin.
When Henry Smith closed in 2005, the company was taken over by T Cribb & Sons, of Beckton, east London. However, the order books did not survive the takeover, according to a spokesman for the firm, meaning the precise date of manufacture has been lost.
It would have taken around a week to make, and was in storage for so long that the brass handles, made to a design called “royal gothic”, were replaced by Levertons after they took possession of it.
Although Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral will, naturally, be the most prestigious ever undertaken by Levertons, the firm - established in 1789 - handled the funerals of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, Princess Margaret, Margaret Thatcher, George Orwell, Michael Foot and Peter O’Toole, among others.
Mr Leverton told The Times that in some ways Thatcher's funeral “put more pressure on us”, because for a state funeral the arrangements are handled by the Earl Marshal and coffin bearers are provided by the Armed Forces - limiting the involvement of the funeral directors themselves.
“We have to attend meetings and help with practices. There are practice coffins which are weighted appropriately. We are a relatively small cog in a very big machine,” said Mr Leverton.
“For a normal funeral we have very close contact with the family. We take instructions from the Royal Household, not, obviously, directly from the Royal family.”
