Ted Hughes honoured with Poets' Corner memorial

The tribute reinforces his position as one of the most significant poets of the 20th century and will put him alongside figures such as Wordsworth and Betjeman.

Hughes - who was Poet Laureate for 14 years until his death in 1998 - was accepted for the the accolade by the Dean of Westminster.

There is no automatic qualification for a place in Poets' Corner. The Dean, the Very Reverend Dr John Hall, takes soundings from academics, critics and the peers about the significance of those whose names are recommended.

Hughes's memorial will be in the South Transept, in the company of the graves and memorials of other poets and great writers.

The Poets Laureate John Dryden, John Masefield and Alfred Lord Tennyson are all buried in the Abbey while John Betjeman, William Wordsworth and Robert Southey are commemorated with memorials.

Hughes will be commemorated with a floor stone or wall plaque. His ashes will not be re-interred there.

The writer - born in Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire, in 1930 - found immediate acclaim with his first book of poems, Hawk In The Rain, in 1957 and over the next 41 years, he wrote nearly 90 books, winning numerous prizes. He won the Whitbread Book Of The Year prize posthumously in 1999 with Birthday Letters. He had been awarded the prize for the first time only a year earlier for Tales From Ovid.

Dr Hall said: "Deciding within a few years of people's death that they will be remembered in hundreds of years' time is of course impossible. And yet, it is sometimes right to make such a decision, as Deans have done over the centuries. By no means every Poet Laureate has been commemorated in Poets' Corner. But the overwhelming weight of advice I have received suggests that this is the right decision."

His widow Carol Hughes told London's Evening Standard newspaper: "I am thrilled that something of his colossal presence will haunt the aisles of Westminster Abbey. Once the memorial is in place, I hope that those already familiar with Ted's work will see it as a fitting tribute, and those visitors who come across it unexpectedly might be inspired to discover his work for themselves."