Pictures show thousands of people queuing to see King George VI’s coffin

Hundreds of thousands of people lined up patiently this week to see the Queen’s coffin lie in state in Westminster Hall.

Yesterday, the queue through central London reached nearly five miles, with mourners waiting more than nine hours to say goodbye to Britain’s longest-serving monarch.

An estimated 350,000 fans of the Royal Family will turn out to see the late head of state ahead of her state funeral at Westminster Abbey on Monday.

The line to see the Queen’s coffin starts at Westminster, stretches to the south bank of the River Thames and even reached Southwark Park in Bermondsey on Friday morning.

This morning the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport warned that the queue had reached capacity and entry was closed for six hours to let numbers fall.

Images of long lines of people winding through the streets of the capital are reminiscent of the scenes after the death of Queen Elizabeth II’s father, King George VI.

Black-and-white photographs from February 1952 show thousands of people waiting to pay their last respects to the king, who died in his sleep aged 56 after a battle with lung cancer.

While much about Britain has changed over the past seven decades, one thing that has remained the same is the nation’s enthusiasm for keeping queues tidy.

Read more: Queen’s funeral: How to watch Monday’s ceremony at Westminster Abbey

An estimated 305,806 people filed past the King’s coffin over the course of three days, with the queue peaking at around 4 miles long.

Britons waited in the rain and freezing temperatures in what was nicknamed by Londoners the “Great Queue”, which stretched from Westminster well beyond Lambeth Bridge.

In an address to the nation after the king’s death, Prime Minister Winston Churchill said: “We cannot at this time do more than record the spontaneous expression of grief.”

Here’s a look back at how people waited to pay their respects all those years ago.

Read more: A devoted royal fan travels 11,000 miles for the Queen’s funeral and procession