Ladies with fruit bowl hats at Westminster Abbey

I tried to enter Westminster Abbey – without success.  The guard informed me the church was closed to the public on that day – and about 5 minutes later a huge entourage of ladies wearing huge hats arrived:

These were not just hats to protect against the rain – these were huge hats that look like that contained whole bowls of fruit on top!

Now, were these royal ladies?  Or maybe just the regular meeting of the “fruit bowl hat enthusiast’s club?”  I guess I’ll never know.  But I do have to say, English ladies do seem to like wearing hats that look like they had huge bowls of fruit on top!