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The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament, is the seat of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The Palace lies on the north bank of the River Thames[in the London borough of the City of Westminster, close to the government buildings of Whitehall.
The palace contains around 1,100 rooms, 100 staircases and 5 kilometres (3 mi) of corridors. Although the building mainly dates from the 19th century, remaining elements of the original historic buildings include Westminster Hall, used today for major public ceremonial events such as lyings in state, and the Jewel Tower.
Control of the Palace of Westminster and its precincts was for centuries exercised by the Queen's representative, the Lord Great Chamberlain. By agreement with the Crown, control passed to the two Houses in 1965. Certain ceremonial rooms continue to be controlled by the Lord Great Chamberlain.
After a fire in 1834, the present Houses of Parliament were built over the next 30 years. They were the work of the architect Sir Charles Barry (1795–1860) and his assistant Augustus Welby Pugin (1812–52). The design incorporated Westminster Hall and the remains of St Stephen's Chapel.
History
The Old Palace
The Palace of Westminster site was strategically important during the Middle Ages, as it was located on the banks of the River Thames. Buildings have occupied the site since at least Saxon times.[citation needed] Known in medieval times as Thorney Island, the site may have been first-used for a royal residence by Canute the Great (reigned 1016–35). St Edward the Confessor, the penultimate Saxon monarch of England, built a royal palace on Thorney Island just west of the City of London at about the same time as he built Westminster Abbey (1045–50). Thorney Island and the surrounding area soon became known as Westminster (a contraction of the words West Minster). After the Norman Conquest in 1066, King William I established himself at the Tower of London, but later moved to Westminster Neither the buildings used by the Saxons nor those used by William I survive. The oldest existing part of the Palace (Westminster Hall) dates from the reign of William I's successor, King William II.
The Palace of Westminster was the monarch's principal residence in the late Medieval period. The predecessor of Parliament, the Curia Regis (Royal Council), met in Westminster Hall (although it followed the King when he moved to other palaces). The Model Parliament, the first official Parliament of England, met in the Palace in 1295; almost all subsequent Parliaments have met there.
The Jewel Tower was built approximately in 1365 to house the treasures of King Edward III.
Westminster remained the monarch's chief London residence until a fire destroyed part of the complex in 1512.[citation needed] In 1530, King Henry VIII acquired York Palace from Thomas Cardinal Wolsey a powerful minister who had lost the King's favour. Renaming it the Palace of Whitehall, Henry used it as his principal residence. Although Westminster officially remained a royal palace, it was used by the two Houses of Parliament and as a law court.
Because it was originally a royal residence, the Palace included no purpose-built chambers for the two Houses. Important state ceremonies were held in the Painted Chamber. The House of Lords originally met in the Queen's Chamber, a modest Medieval hall at the south end of the complex. In later years the Upper House met in the larger White Chamber, which had formerly housed the Court of Requests; the expansion of the Peerage by King George III during the 18th century necessitated the move as the original chamber could not accommodate the increased number of peers.
The House of Commons, which did not have a chamber of its own, sometimes held its debates in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey. The Commons acquired a permanent home at the Palace in the form of St Stephen's Chapel during the reign of Edward VI. The Chantries Act 1547 (passed as a part of the Protestant Reformation) dissolved the religious order of the Canons of St Stephen's, among other institutions; thus, the building became available for the Commons' use. Alterations were made to St Stephen's Chapel for the convenience of the Lower House. Sir Christopher Wren was commissioned to carry out major work on the chapel in the late 17th century. During these works the chapel's clerestory was removed and its Gothic interiors concealed behind oak panelling. More seating was added over the years to accommodate the new MPs created by the Acts of Union with Scotland (1707) and Ireland (1800), including an upper-level gallery.
The palace complex was substantially remodelled by Sir John Soane during the early 19th century. The medieval House of Lords chamber, which had been the target of the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, was demolished as part of this work in order to create a new ceremonial entrance at the southern end of the palace. The original undercroft where Guy Fawkes was discovered guarding the barrels of gunpowder was also lost during the reconstruction. Soane's work at the palace included new law courts adjoining Westminster Hall and a new Members' entrance to St. Stephen's Chapel.
FIRE AND RECONSTRUCTION
On 16 October 1834, a fire broke out in the Palace after a stove used to destroy the Exchequer's stockpile of tally sticks ignited panelling in the Lords Chamber. In the resulting conflagration both houses of Parliament were destroyed along with most of the other buildings in the palace complex. Westminster Hall was saved largely due to heroic firefighting efforts. The Jewel Tower, the crypt of St Stephen's Chapel and the cloisters were the only other parts of the palace to survive.
At one stage, King William IV considered converting Buckingham Palace, which was being renovated at the time, into the new Houses of Parliament.
A Royal Commission was appointed to study the rebuilding of the Palace and a heated public debate over the proposed styles ensued. The neo-Classical design, similar to that of the White House and the federal Capitol in the United States, was popular at the time, but had connotations of revolution and republicanism, whereas Gothic design embodied conservative values. The Commission announced in June 1835 that "the style of the buildings would be either Gothic or Elizabethan".
In 1836, after studying 97 rival proposals, the Royal Commission chose Charles Barry's plan for a Gothic-style palace. The foundation stone was laid in 1840; the Lords Chamber was completed in 1847, and the Commons Chamber in 1852 (at which point Barry received a knighthood). Although most of the work had been carried out by 1860, construction was not finished until a decade afterwards. Barry (whose own architectural style was more classical than Gothic) relied heavily on Augustus Pugin for the sumptuous and distinctive Gothic interiors, including wallpapers, carvings, stained glass and furnishings, like the royal thrones and canopies.
During the Second World War, the Palace of Westminster was hit fourteen times by bombs (see The Blitz). The worst of these was on 10 May 1941, when the Commons Chamber was destroyed and three people were killed. The chamber was re-built under the architect Giles Gilbert Scott in a similar but more austere style; the work was completed in 1950.
As the need for office space in the Palace increased, Parliament acquired office space in the nearby Norman Shaw Building in 1975, and more recently in the custom-built Portcullis House, completed in 2000. This increase has now allowed all MPs to have their own office facilities.
EXTERIOR
Sir Charles Barry's collaborative design for the Palace of Westminster uses the Perpendicular Gothic style, which was popular during the 15th century and returned during the Gothic revival of the 19th century. Barry was a classical architect, but he was aided by the Gothic architect Augustus Pugin. Westminster Hall, which was built in the 11th century and survived the fire of 1834, was incorporated in Barry's design. Pugin was displeased with the result of the work, especially with the symmetrical layout designed by Barry; he famously remarked, "All Grecian, sir; Tudor details on a classic body"
Stonework
The stonework of the building was originally Anston, a sand-coloured magnesian limestone quarried in the village of Anston in South Yorkshire. The stone, however, soon began to decay due to pollution and the poor quality of some of the stone used. Although such defects were clear as early as 1849, nothing was done for the remainder of the 19th century. During the 1910s, however, it became clear that some of the stonework had to be replaced.
In 1928 it was deemed necessary to use Clipsham Stone, a honey-coloured limestone from Rutland, to replace the decayed Anston. The project began in the 1930s but was halted due to the Second World War, and completed only during the 1950s. By the 1960s pollution had once again begun to take its toll. A stone conservation and restoration programme to the external elevations and towers began in 1981, and ended in 1994. The House Authorities have since been undertaking the external restoration of the many inner courtyards, a task due to continue until approximately 2010.
Towers
Victoria Tower and Big Ben
Sir Charles Barry's Palace of Westminster includes several towers. The tallest is the 98.5-metre (323 ft) Victoria Tower, a square tower at the south-western end of the Palace. It was named after the reigning monarch at the time of the reconstruction of the Palace, Queen Victoria; today, it is home to the Parliamentary Archives. Atop the Victoria Tower is an iron flagstaff, from which either the Royal Standard (if the Sovereign is present in the Palace) or the Union Flag is flown. At the base of the tower is the Sovereign's Entrance to the Palace, used by the monarch whenever entering the Palace of Westminster for the State Opening of Parliament or for any other official ceremony.
Over the middle of the Palace, immediately above the Central Lobby, stands the octagonal Central Tower. At 91.4 metres (300 ft), it is the shortest of the Palace's three principal towers. Unlike the other towers, the Central Tower culminates in a spire, and was designed as a high-level air intake.
At the north end of the Palace is the most famous of the towers, the Clock Tower, commonly known as Big Ben after its main bell. The Clock Tower is 96.3 metres (316 ft) tall. Pugin's drawings for the tower were the last work he did for Barry. The Clock Tower houses a large, four-faced clock—the Great Clock of Westminster—also designed by Pugin. The tower also houses five bells, which strike the Westminster Chimes every quarter hour. The largest and most famous of the bells is Big Ben (officially The Great Bell of Westminster), which strikes the hour. This is the third-heaviest bell in England, weighing 13.8 tonnes (13.6 long tons). Although Big Ben properly refers only to the bell, it is colloquially applied to the whole tower. A light, called the Ayrton Light, is located at the top of the Clock Tower. The Ayrton Light is lit when either the House of Commons or the House of Lords is sitting after dark. The light takes its name from Thomas Ayrton, the first Commissioner of Works who installed a gas lamp in the tower soon after it was built in 1885. It was installed at the request of Queen Victoria, so she could see from Buckingham Palace whether the members were "at work".
A small tower, St. Stephen's Tower, is positioned at the front of the Palace, between Westminster Hall and Old Palace Yard, and contains the main entrance to the House of Commons at its base, known as St. Stephen's Entrance. Other towers include Speaker's and Chancellor's Towers, at the north and south ends of the building's river front respectively. They are named after the presiding officers of the two Houses of Parliament at the time of the Palace's reconstruction, the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord High Chancellor.
Rules and traditions
Eating, drinking and smoking
The Palace has accumulated many rules and traditions over the centuries. Smoking has not been allowed in the chambers of the House of Lords and the Commons since the 17th century. As a result, Members may take snuff instead and the doorkeepers still keep a snuff-box for this purpose. Despite persistent media rumours, it has not been possible to smoke anywhere inside the Palace since 2005. Members may not eat or drink in the chamber; the exception to this rule is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who may have an alcoholic drink while delivering the Budget statement.
Dress code
Hats must not be worn (although they formerly were when a point of order was being raised), and Members may not wear military decorations or insignia. Members are not allowed to have their hands in their pockets—Andrew Robathan was heckled by opposing MPs for doing this on 19 December 1994. Swords may not be worn in the Palace, and each MP has a loop of ribbon in the cloakroom for storing weapons.
Forms of address
Members may not refer to each other by name and use either "my honourable friend" (if a member of the same party) or "the honourable lady/gentleman" (for members from other parties); alternatively, "the honourable member for [the constituency]" is used. Members of the Privy Council are referred to as "the right honourable". Barrister MPs are entitled to be styled "my learned friend" or "the learned lady/gentleman".
In the House of Lords, members are referred to as "the noble lord/lady", or "my noble friend".
Other traditions
No animals may enter the Palace of Westminster, with the exception of guide dogs for the blind; sniffer dogs and police horses are also allowed on the grounds.
Speeches may not be read out during debate, although notes may be referred to. Similarly, the reading of newspapers is not allowed. Visual aids are discouraged in the chamber.
Applause is not normally allowed in the Lords and Commons. Some notable exceptions to this were when Robin Cook gave his resignation speech in 2003, when Prime Minister Tony Blair appeared for the last time at Prime Minister's Questions and when Speaker Michael Martin gave his leaving speech on 17 June 2009.
It is a convention that MPs do not discuss the Sovereign nor use the name of the monarch as a point of debate without prior permission from the Speaker. This comes from 19th-century constitutionalist Erskine May, who said, "the irregular use of the Queen's name to influence a decision of the House is unconstitutional in principle and inconsistent with the independence of Parliament ... Any attempt to use her name in debate to influence the judgement of Parliament is immediately checked and censured." Vincent Cable was reprimanded for breaking this convention during a session of Prime Minister's Questions in 2008.
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The palace contains around 1,100 rooms, 100 staircases and 5 kilometres (3 mi) of corridors. Although the building mainly dates from the 19th century, remaining elements of the original historic buildings include Westminster Hall, used today for major public ceremonial events such as lyings in state, and the Jewel Tower.
Control of the Palace of Westminster and its precincts was for centuries exercised by the Queen's representative, the Lord Great Chamberlain. By agreement with the Crown, control passed to the two Houses in 1965. Certain ceremonial rooms continue to be controlled by the Lord Great Chamberlain.
After a fire in 1834, the present Houses of Parliament were built over the next 30 years. They were the work of the architect Sir Charles Barry (1795–1860) and his assistant Augustus Welby Pugin (1812–52). The design incorporated Westminster Hall and the remains of St Stephen's Chapel.
History
The Old Palace
The Palace of Westminster site was strategically important during the Middle Ages, as it was located on the banks of the River Thames. Buildings have occupied the site since at least Saxon times.[citation needed] Known in medieval times as Thorney Island, the site may have been first-used for a royal residence by Canute the Great (reigned 1016–35). St Edward the Confessor, the penultimate Saxon monarch of England, built a royal palace on Thorney Island just west of the City of London at about the same time as he built Westminster Abbey (1045–50). Thorney Island and the surrounding area soon became known as Westminster (a contraction of the words West Minster). After the Norman Conquest in 1066, King William I established himself at the Tower of London, but later moved to Westminster Neither the buildings used by the Saxons nor those used by William I survive. The oldest existing part of the Palace (Westminster Hall) dates from the reign of William I's successor, King William II.
The Palace of Westminster was the monarch's principal residence in the late Medieval period. The predecessor of Parliament, the Curia Regis (Royal Council), met in Westminster Hall (although it followed the King when he moved to other palaces). The Model Parliament, the first official Parliament of England, met in the Palace in 1295; almost all subsequent Parliaments have met there.
The Jewel Tower was built approximately in 1365 to house the treasures of King Edward III.
Westminster remained the monarch's chief London residence until a fire destroyed part of the complex in 1512.[citation needed] In 1530, King Henry VIII acquired York Palace from Thomas Cardinal Wolsey a powerful minister who had lost the King's favour. Renaming it the Palace of Whitehall, Henry used it as his principal residence. Although Westminster officially remained a royal palace, it was used by the two Houses of Parliament and as a law court.
Because it was originally a royal residence, the Palace included no purpose-built chambers for the two Houses. Important state ceremonies were held in the Painted Chamber. The House of Lords originally met in the Queen's Chamber, a modest Medieval hall at the south end of the complex. In later years the Upper House met in the larger White Chamber, which had formerly housed the Court of Requests; the expansion of the Peerage by King George III during the 18th century necessitated the move as the original chamber could not accommodate the increased number of peers.
The House of Commons, which did not have a chamber of its own, sometimes held its debates in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey. The Commons acquired a permanent home at the Palace in the form of St Stephen's Chapel during the reign of Edward VI. The Chantries Act 1547 (passed as a part of the Protestant Reformation) dissolved the religious order of the Canons of St Stephen's, among other institutions; thus, the building became available for the Commons' use. Alterations were made to St Stephen's Chapel for the convenience of the Lower House. Sir Christopher Wren was commissioned to carry out major work on the chapel in the late 17th century. During these works the chapel's clerestory was removed and its Gothic interiors concealed behind oak panelling. More seating was added over the years to accommodate the new MPs created by the Acts of Union with Scotland (1707) and Ireland (1800), including an upper-level gallery.
The palace complex was substantially remodelled by Sir John Soane during the early 19th century. The medieval House of Lords chamber, which had been the target of the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, was demolished as part of this work in order to create a new ceremonial entrance at the southern end of the palace. The original undercroft where Guy Fawkes was discovered guarding the barrels of gunpowder was also lost during the reconstruction. Soane's work at the palace included new law courts adjoining Westminster Hall and a new Members' entrance to St. Stephen's Chapel.
FIRE AND RECONSTRUCTION
On 16 October 1834, a fire broke out in the Palace after a stove used to destroy the Exchequer's stockpile of tally sticks ignited panelling in the Lords Chamber. In the resulting conflagration both houses of Parliament were destroyed along with most of the other buildings in the palace complex. Westminster Hall was saved largely due to heroic firefighting efforts. The Jewel Tower, the crypt of St Stephen's Chapel and the cloisters were the only other parts of the palace to survive.
At one stage, King William IV considered converting Buckingham Palace, which was being renovated at the time, into the new Houses of Parliament.
A Royal Commission was appointed to study the rebuilding of the Palace and a heated public debate over the proposed styles ensued. The neo-Classical design, similar to that of the White House and the federal Capitol in the United States, was popular at the time, but had connotations of revolution and republicanism, whereas Gothic design embodied conservative values. The Commission announced in June 1835 that "the style of the buildings would be either Gothic or Elizabethan".
In 1836, after studying 97 rival proposals, the Royal Commission chose Charles Barry's plan for a Gothic-style palace. The foundation stone was laid in 1840; the Lords Chamber was completed in 1847, and the Commons Chamber in 1852 (at which point Barry received a knighthood). Although most of the work had been carried out by 1860, construction was not finished until a decade afterwards. Barry (whose own architectural style was more classical than Gothic) relied heavily on Augustus Pugin for the sumptuous and distinctive Gothic interiors, including wallpapers, carvings, stained glass and furnishings, like the royal thrones and canopies.
During the Second World War, the Palace of Westminster was hit fourteen times by bombs (see The Blitz). The worst of these was on 10 May 1941, when the Commons Chamber was destroyed and three people were killed. The chamber was re-built under the architect Giles Gilbert Scott in a similar but more austere style; the work was completed in 1950.
As the need for office space in the Palace increased, Parliament acquired office space in the nearby Norman Shaw Building in 1975, and more recently in the custom-built Portcullis House, completed in 2000. This increase has now allowed all MPs to have their own office facilities.
EXTERIOR
Sir Charles Barry's collaborative design for the Palace of Westminster uses the Perpendicular Gothic style, which was popular during the 15th century and returned during the Gothic revival of the 19th century. Barry was a classical architect, but he was aided by the Gothic architect Augustus Pugin. Westminster Hall, which was built in the 11th century and survived the fire of 1834, was incorporated in Barry's design. Pugin was displeased with the result of the work, especially with the symmetrical layout designed by Barry; he famously remarked, "All Grecian, sir; Tudor details on a classic body"
Stonework
The stonework of the building was originally Anston, a sand-coloured magnesian limestone quarried in the village of Anston in South Yorkshire. The stone, however, soon began to decay due to pollution and the poor quality of some of the stone used. Although such defects were clear as early as 1849, nothing was done for the remainder of the 19th century. During the 1910s, however, it became clear that some of the stonework had to be replaced.
In 1928 it was deemed necessary to use Clipsham Stone, a honey-coloured limestone from Rutland, to replace the decayed Anston. The project began in the 1930s but was halted due to the Second World War, and completed only during the 1950s. By the 1960s pollution had once again begun to take its toll. A stone conservation and restoration programme to the external elevations and towers began in 1981, and ended in 1994. The House Authorities have since been undertaking the external restoration of the many inner courtyards, a task due to continue until approximately 2010.
Towers
Victoria Tower and Big Ben
Sir Charles Barry's Palace of Westminster includes several towers. The tallest is the 98.5-metre (323 ft) Victoria Tower, a square tower at the south-western end of the Palace. It was named after the reigning monarch at the time of the reconstruction of the Palace, Queen Victoria; today, it is home to the Parliamentary Archives. Atop the Victoria Tower is an iron flagstaff, from which either the Royal Standard (if the Sovereign is present in the Palace) or the Union Flag is flown. At the base of the tower is the Sovereign's Entrance to the Palace, used by the monarch whenever entering the Palace of Westminster for the State Opening of Parliament or for any other official ceremony.
Over the middle of the Palace, immediately above the Central Lobby, stands the octagonal Central Tower. At 91.4 metres (300 ft), it is the shortest of the Palace's three principal towers. Unlike the other towers, the Central Tower culminates in a spire, and was designed as a high-level air intake.
At the north end of the Palace is the most famous of the towers, the Clock Tower, commonly known as Big Ben after its main bell. The Clock Tower is 96.3 metres (316 ft) tall. Pugin's drawings for the tower were the last work he did for Barry. The Clock Tower houses a large, four-faced clock—the Great Clock of Westminster—also designed by Pugin. The tower also houses five bells, which strike the Westminster Chimes every quarter hour. The largest and most famous of the bells is Big Ben (officially The Great Bell of Westminster), which strikes the hour. This is the third-heaviest bell in England, weighing 13.8 tonnes (13.6 long tons). Although Big Ben properly refers only to the bell, it is colloquially applied to the whole tower. A light, called the Ayrton Light, is located at the top of the Clock Tower. The Ayrton Light is lit when either the House of Commons or the House of Lords is sitting after dark. The light takes its name from Thomas Ayrton, the first Commissioner of Works who installed a gas lamp in the tower soon after it was built in 1885. It was installed at the request of Queen Victoria, so she could see from Buckingham Palace whether the members were "at work".
A small tower, St. Stephen's Tower, is positioned at the front of the Palace, between Westminster Hall and Old Palace Yard, and contains the main entrance to the House of Commons at its base, known as St. Stephen's Entrance. Other towers include Speaker's and Chancellor's Towers, at the north and south ends of the building's river front respectively. They are named after the presiding officers of the two Houses of Parliament at the time of the Palace's reconstruction, the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord High Chancellor.
Rules and traditions
Eating, drinking and smoking
The Palace has accumulated many rules and traditions over the centuries. Smoking has not been allowed in the chambers of the House of Lords and the Commons since the 17th century. As a result, Members may take snuff instead and the doorkeepers still keep a snuff-box for this purpose. Despite persistent media rumours, it has not been possible to smoke anywhere inside the Palace since 2005. Members may not eat or drink in the chamber; the exception to this rule is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who may have an alcoholic drink while delivering the Budget statement.
Dress code
Hats must not be worn (although they formerly were when a point of order was being raised), and Members may not wear military decorations or insignia. Members are not allowed to have their hands in their pockets—Andrew Robathan was heckled by opposing MPs for doing this on 19 December 1994. Swords may not be worn in the Palace, and each MP has a loop of ribbon in the cloakroom for storing weapons.
Forms of address
Members may not refer to each other by name and use either "my honourable friend" (if a member of the same party) or "the honourable lady/gentleman" (for members from other parties); alternatively, "the honourable member for [the constituency]" is used. Members of the Privy Council are referred to as "the right honourable". Barrister MPs are entitled to be styled "my learned friend" or "the learned lady/gentleman".
In the House of Lords, members are referred to as "the noble lord/lady", or "my noble friend".
Other traditions
No animals may enter the Palace of Westminster, with the exception of guide dogs for the blind; sniffer dogs and police horses are also allowed on the grounds.
Speeches may not be read out during debate, although notes may be referred to. Similarly, the reading of newspapers is not allowed. Visual aids are discouraged in the chamber.
Applause is not normally allowed in the Lords and Commons. Some notable exceptions to this were when Robin Cook gave his resignation speech in 2003, when Prime Minister Tony Blair appeared for the last time at Prime Minister's Questions and when Speaker Michael Martin gave his leaving speech on 17 June 2009.
It is a convention that MPs do not discuss the Sovereign nor use the name of the monarch as a point of debate without prior permission from the Speaker. This comes from 19th-century constitutionalist Erskine May, who said, "the irregular use of the Queen's name to influence a decision of the House is unconstitutional in principle and inconsistent with the independence of Parliament ... Any attempt to use her name in debate to influence the judgement of Parliament is immediately checked and censured." Vincent Cable was reprimanded for breaking this convention during a session of Prime Minister's Questions in 2008.
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