A gun carriage bearing Baroness Thatcher's coffin is making its way to St Paul's Cathedral in a ceremonial procession to her funeral.
The 1st Battalion Welsh Guards formed an honour guard, as church bells tolled.
Crowds watched in respectful silence as the procession began, accompanied by the Royal Marines band.
Some 2,300 people, from 170 countries, are expected to attend the funeral. The Queen will be among them.
Four thousand police are on duty in central London but there have been few signs of protests.
Lady Thatcher's hearse was flanked by police outriders as it left Parliament, where her body lay overnight, to travel to St Clement Danes, the RAF church on The Strand, where it was transferred to a gun carriage.
A white floral arrangement on top of the funeral bore a card reading: "Beloved mother, always in our hearts."
Prayers were said by St Clement Danes' resident chaplain the Rev David Osborn.
Members of all three services and 16 Chelsea pensioners will line the steps of St Paul's as the coffin borne into the cathedral.
'Sombre event'Lady Thatcher, who was Conservative Prime Minister from 1979 until 1990, died on 8 April, following a stroke, at the age of 87.
She has been accorded a ceremonial funeral with military honours, one step down from a state funeral.
Continue reading the main storySpeaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Cameron said it would have been seen as extraordinary not to commemorate her life.
"I think it will be quite a sombre event, but it is a fitting tribute to a great prime minister respected around the world, and I think other countries in the world would think Britain had got it completely wrong if we didn't mark this in a proper way,"
Asked about those who wanted to challenge his view of Lady Thatcher, the prime minister said: "Of course people have the right to disagree and take a different view.
"But when you're mourning the passing of an 87-year-old woman who was the first woman prime minister, who served for longer in the job than anyone for 150 years I think it's appropriate to show respect."
He said he had been "partly" inspired, as a young man, to join the Conservative Party by Baroness Thatcher, who he thought was a "very brave woman doing a tough job".
'Humble service'Police were out early on Wednesday with metal crowd control barriers in place along the main route in Westminster.
At the scene
Gerry Holt BBC News. St Paul's Cathedral
As night turned to day, crowds were already lining the barriers opposite St Paul's Cathedral, many with Union flags and all in good spirits.
Some have been here for more than 24 hours, with little more comfort than raincoats, fold-up chairs, flasks of hot tea and sandwiches.
John Loughrey, 58, from Wandsworth, south-west London, arrived at 09:30 BST on Tuesday.
"My main focus is to pay my final respects to Mrs Thatcher," who is an "icon of the 20th Century", he says.
Well wishers - and even police - outnumber protesters.
But Henry Page, 61, from Brighton is not deterred. He is protesting about the cost of the funeral.
"People might say my protest is inappropriate, undignified or vulgar but how undignified is it for David Cameron and Boris Johnson to be falling over themselves to make Margaret Thatcher's funeral more pompous?"
There has been some rain, but it has not dampened the atmosphere as guests begin to arrive to say a final farewell to the Iron Lady.
The Dean of St Paul's said the funeral would be "relatively humble" in line with Lady Thatcher's wishes.
The Very Rev Dr David Ison said she had played a large part in planning the funeral over the past six years.
He said the "simple" service would be in contrast to the "pomp and ceremony" surrounding the transit of the coffin.
"Mrs Thatcher wanted something that was very simple and it is not at all triumphalist," he said.
"There is no eulogy, she is only mentioned once or twice in the service. It uses the book of common prayer, which is actually quite austere in places."
As well as the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, all 32 members of the current cabinet are attending the service, along with more than 30 members of Lady Thatcher's cabinets from her time as prime minister.
There will be more than 50 guests associated with the Falkland Islands, including veterans from the 1982 conflict with Argentina, but Argentina's ambassador to London, Alicia Castro, has declined an invitation to attend.
Alan Southern, a former member of the Parachute Regiment who fought in the Falklands War, said: "Lady Thatcher was an absolutely wonderful lady. She loved the armed forces and she did so much for the country, she put the 'great' back in Great Britain."
In total, two current heads of state, 11 serving prime ministers and 17 serving foreign ministers from around the world will attend.
'Difficult balance'Six police forces from outside London have sent specialist officers to help with escorting foreign dignitaries.
Various roads along the route were closed from 07:30 BST, and Transport for London has advised drivers to avoid Westminster and the City of London. The roads are expected to be re-opened as soon as possible following the funeral.
There were union jacks on display, as well as flags from the US, Canada, Scotland, Poland and the Falkland Islands.
"Start Quote
End QuoteToday's Conservative leadership have used this week to praise Lady Thatcher but also to bury the idea that all their party needs is a revival of her ideas and her style of leadership. "
Wednesday's House of Commons sitting has been delayed until 14:30 BST, meaning the cancellation of Prime Minister's Questions, in order to allow MPs to attend - a move approved in a Commons vote on Tuesday.
The Metropolitan Police said it had been contacted by a small number of protesters to say they were planning action on the funeral route in protest at the impact of some of Lady Thatcher's policies while she was in power. Other protests are expected elsewhere.
BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw said although Monday's bomb attack at the Boston Marathon was not believed to have led to any significant changes in security for the funeral, it was expected that the police and public would be more vigilant.
He said arguably the biggest headache for police was how to respond to any spontaneous protests along the funeral route or close to mourners.
Senior officers acknowledged they had a "difficult" balance to strike between allowing people to express their opinions and maintaining order, he added.
Police have powers to arrest those who use "threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour", but Scotland Yard said it was not for the police to "uphold respect".
Lady Thatcher's union jack-draped coffin was placed in the Palace of Westminster's Chapel of St Mary Undercroft overnight on Tuesday.
A short service, led by the Dean of Westminster, was held for members of the family, senior parliamentarians, and staff from Parliament and Downing Street.
The House of Commons speaker's chaplain kept vigil in the chapel through the night.
The chimes of Big Ben will be silenced for the duration of Lady Thatcher's funeral. St Paul's has published a full funeral order of service.
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Westminster
The funeral procession will set out from the Palace of Westminster with Baroness Thatcher's body carried in a hearse for the first part of the journey. The coffin will be trasferred to a gun carriage at the church of St Clement Danes on the Strand.
Baroness Thatcher's body will lie overnight in the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft which is found beneath St Stephen's Hall at the Palace of Westminster.
St Clement Danes
At the RAF Chapel at the church of St Clement Danes on the Strand, Baroness Thatcher's coffin will be borne in procession to St Paul's Cathedral on a gun carriage drawn by six horses of the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery.
St Paul's Cathedral
There will be a Guard of Honour outside St Paul's as the coffin is transferred into the Cathedral by service personnel from regiments and ships closely associated with the Falklands campaign.
The ceremony in St Paul's Cathedral will be attended by the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, family and friends of Baroness Thatcher, members of her cabinets and dignitaries from around the world.
Downing Street
The funeral passes Downing Street, which is found on the left of the route along Whitehall.
Baroness Thatcher was resident at Number 10 for more than ten years following her General Election victory in 1979.
Ceremonial procession
Once the procession leaves St Clement Danes, the route to St Paul's along Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill will be lined by more than 700 armed forces personnel from the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, F Company Scots Guards, 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, and the Royal Air Force.
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