As the Queen lay in state in Westminster Hall last week, around a quarter of a million people came to pay their respects.

Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan gave the figure the morning after the nation’s longest-reigning monarch was buried at Windsor Castle yesterday.

Donelan said her department was still “crunching the numbers” as to how many people had queued for hours in London to process past the Queen’s coffin at Westminster Hall, but that she believed they numbered around 250,000.

Royal Family week of mourning

The Royal Family will be observing a further week of mourning for the Queen which will see residence flags at half-mast and no official engagements attended.

This follows after an emotional day for the Royal Family as mourners across the world watched the Queen’s funeral to pay their respects.

Queen's children hold vigil around mother's coffin

How much was the Queen’s funeral?

Donelan said that most British people would see the cost of the Queen’s funeral as “money well spent” but could not put a figure on what that cost might be.

Pressed on Sky News about the cost of the funeral, she said: “I’m not sure of the exact costings but as I say, I think the British public would argue that that was money well spent.

“You saw so many thousands out there and I don’t think anybody can suggest that our late monarch didn’t deserve that send-off, given the duty and the selfless service that she committed to over 70 years.”

She said it would be “downright preposterous” to suggest otherwise.

“It was a great sense of the community coming together. I always think of our late monarch as the glue that brought society together,” she added.

King Charles III decreed on September 9, the day after the Queen died following her 70-year reign, that a period of mourning would be observed until seven days after the funeral.