Four-kilometre queue as mourners file past Queen Elizabeth's coffin

After a long and patient wait in the sun and the rain, the first members of the public filed past the casket of Queen Elizabeth II in London on Wednesday as she lay in state in the 925-year-old Westminster Hall.

At the head of the four-kilometre (2.4-mile) queue, well-wishers had camped out for 48 hours in order to pay their respects in front of the flag-shrouded coffin which was brought from Buckingham Palace earlier in the day.

"Inside it was really quite calm and incredibly emotional. A lot of people were in tears, but there was total silence," 50-year-old accountant Sue Harvey said after emerging from the hall.

"She is everything I have known. I wanted to make sure I did see her, no matter how long the queue was going to be," she told AFP.

In sombre scenes, many people stopped and bowed or curtsied towards the coffin. Others crossed themselves, or removed their hats.

Some prayed towards the casket or wiped away tears with tissues. Some brought their infants in pushchairs. Old soldiers stopped and gave one last salute to their former commander-in-chief.

To the strains of a military band playing funeral marches, King Charles III led the royal family in procession to Westminster Hall behind a horse-drawn gun carriage bearing the coffin.

The new king, his siblings, and sons Princes William and Harry, walked at 75 steps a minute behind the gun carriage as the Big Ben bell tolled from the Elizabeth Tower at the Houses of Parliament, and guns fired regular salutes from Hyde Park.

The lying-in-state began with a short Anglican service before black-clad members of parliament including new Prime Minister Liz Truss filed past the coffin, which will be on display for five days, around-the-clock.

"Nobody wants to wait, but we kind of feel that we owe something to the queen because she's been there for the whole of our lives," said Andrew Clyde, 53, who had travelled specially from Northern Ireland.

"I'm ready to wait the whole night if I need to."

- Endurance test -

The grand procession through the flag-lined heart of London represented the latest step in 11 days of intricately choreographed national mourning that will culminate with the funeral on Monday of the longest-reigning monarch in British history.

The sight of the new king's two grief-stricken sons inevitably evoked memories of 1997, when William and Harry, then aged just 15 and 12, walked, heads bowed, behind the coffin of their mother, Diana, princess of Wales.

But it comes with the once-close brothers now estranged, after Harry left royal duty and moved to California with his US wife Meghan.

The public have been warned they will face an endurance test to see the queen's coffin with lines that could tail back a maximum 16 kilometres.

Waiting in line earlier in the day, Brian Flatman, 85, said there was "no way" he would pass up the chance to pay his respects, having missed the queen's coronation in 1953.

"I was 16, we got there before midnight, Hyde Park Corner, superb position, but very quickly I became suddenly ill and had to crawl all the way to south London," he recalled.

"This time there is no way I can mi"It's a massive challenge for the Metropolitan Police and for me personally, but we have been preparing for many, many years," Mark Rowley, the newly-appointed head of the London police force, told Sky News television.ss that. I will dedicate a few seconds there (by the coffin) to her life of dedication. What an example."

Strict rules and airport-style security measures are in place, with "far more" people expected than the 200,000 who filed past the coffin of the queen's mother when she died in 2002, according to the government.