LocationWestminster
London
SW1A 0AA
United Kingdom
Built1016 and later
Demolished1834 (due to fire)
Rebuilt1840–1876
ArchitectsCharles Barry and Augustus Pugin
Architectural style(s)Perpendicular Gothic Revival
OwnerKing Charles III in right of the Crown[2]
UNESCO World Heritage Site
O
Official nameHouses of Parliament and The Palace of Westminster
Palace of Westminster is located in Central LondonPalace of Westminster
Location of the Palace of Westminster in central London
The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is located in London, England. It is commonly called the Houses of Parliament after the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two legislative chambers which occupy the building. The palace is the centre of political life in the United Kingdom; "Westminster" has become a metonym for the UK Parliament and the British Government, and the Westminster system of government commemorates the name of the palace. The clock bell in the Elizabeth Tower (commonly known as the Big Ben Tower) of the palace, nicknamed Big Ben, is a landmark of London and the United Kingdom in general. The Palace of Westminster has been a Grade I listed building since 1970 and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.
The building was originally constructed in the eleventh century as a royal palace, and was the primary residence of the kings of England until 1512, when a fire destroyed the royal apartments. The monarch moved to the adjacent Palace of Whitehall, but the remainder of the palace continued to serve as the home of the Parliament of England, which had met there since the 13th century. In 1834 a second, larger fire destroyed the majority of the palace, but Westminster Hall was saved and incorporated into the replacement palace.
The competition to design the new palace was won by the architect Charles Barry, who chose a Gothic Revival style for the building. Construction started in 1840 and lasted for 30 years, suffering delays, cost overruns, and the deaths of Barry and his assistant, Augustus Pugin. The palace contains chambers for the House of Commons, House of Lords, and the monarch, and has a floor area of 112,476 m2 (1,210,680 sq ft).[1] Extensive repairs had to be made after the Second World War, including rebuilding the destroyed Commons chamber. Despite further conservation work having been carried out since, the palace is in urgent need of major repairs.
History
Conjectural restoration of Westminster during the reign of Henry VIII (1509 – 1547).[3] St Stephen's Chapel is in the centre, with the White Chamber and Painted Chamber on the left and Westminster Hall on the right.
The site of the current palace may have been used by Cnut during his reign from 1016 to 1035, and from c. 1045 – c. 1050 Edward the Confessor built a palace and the first Westminster Abbey. The oldest surviving part of the palace is Westminster Hall, which dates from the reign of William II (r. 1087–1100). The palace was the principal residence of the English monarchs in the late Medieval period. In 1512, during the early reign of Henry VIII, a fire destroyed the royal apartments of the palace.[4] In 1534 Henry moved to the neighbouring Palace of Whitehall, formerly York Place, which he had seized from Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.[5] Although Westminster remained a royal palace, from this point on its primary occupants were the two houses of Parliament and various courts of law.
The predecessor of Parliament, the Curia Regis, met in Westminster Hall when the king was in residence. The "Model Parliament", considered the first Parliament of England, met at the palace in 1295;[6] while medieval parliaments of England met in a variety of locations, the palace was frequently used and developed into the body's permanent home. The palace did not have dedicated chambers for the House of Commons or the House of Lords; the Commons adapted St Stephen's Chapel for its use in the sixteenth century, and the Lords used the Painted Chamber and, from 1801, the White Chamber.
The palace underwent significant alterations from the 18th century onwards, as Parliament struggled to carry out its business in the limited available space. These included a new storage and committee rooms by John Vardy, completed in 1770; a new official residence for the Speaker of the House of Commons, completed in 1795; and significant alterations and a new building by James Wyatt, completed in 1801. The last alterations were undertaken by Sir John Soane between 1824 and 1827, and included new library facilities for both Houses of Parliament and new law courts for the Chancery and King's Bench.
Fire and reconstruction
On 16 October 1834, a fire broke out in the palace after an overheated stove used to destroy the Exchequer's stockpile of tally sticks set fire to the House of Lords Chamber. Both Houses of Parliament were destroyed, along with most of the other buildings in the palace complex. Westminster Hall was saved thanks to fire-fighting efforts and a change in the direction of the wind. The Jewel Tower and the undercroft, cloisters, and chapter house of St Stephen's Chapel were the only other parts of the palace to survive.[7]
William IV offered the almost-completed Buckingham Palace to Parliament, hoping to dispose of a residence he disliked; however, the building was considered unsuitable for parliamentary use and the gift was rejected.[8] The Painted Chamber and White Chamber were hastily repaired for temporary use,[9] and in 1835, following that year's General Election, the King permitted Parliament to make "plans for [its] permanent accommodation".[10] Each house created a committee[11][12] and a Perpendicular Gothic Revival design by the architect Charles Barry was chosen. Barry was inexperienced with Gothic, and relied heavily on Augustus Pugin to design details. The Lords Chamber was completed in 1847, and the Commons Chamber in 1852. Although most of the work had been carried out by 1860, construction was not finished until a decade afterwards.
World War II damage and restoration
The old chamber of the House of Commons was in use between 1852 and 1941, when it was destroyed by German bombs in the course of the Second World War.
During the Second World War the palace was hit by bombs on fourteen separate occasions. A bomb that fell on 26 September 1940 lifted the statue of Richard the Lionheart from its pedestal and bent its sword, an image that was used as a symbol of the strength of democracy, "which would bend but not break under attack".[13]
The worst raid took place in the night of 10–11 May 1941, when the palace took at least twelve hits and three people (two policemen and Resident Superintendent of the House of Lords, Edward Elliott[14]) were killed.[15] The Commons Chamber and the roof of Westminster Hall were both set alight; as the firefighters could not save both, the hall was prioritised and saved, whilst the chamber was destroyed.[16][17] The Lords Chamber and Clock Tower were damaged in the same raid.[15] The Commons Chamber was rebuilt in a simplified style after the war, being completed in 1950.[18]
Recent history
As the need for office space in the palace increased, Parliament acquired office space in the nearby Norman Shaw Building in 1975 and in the custom-built Portcullis House, completed in 2000.[19] This increase has enabled all Members of Parliament (MP) to have their own office facilities.[6]
The palace was designated a Grade I listed building in 1970 and a World Heritage Site in 1987. The fabric of the building is in urgent need of restoration. In January 2018, the House of Commons voted for both houses to vacate the palace to allow for a complete refurbishment of the building, which will take at least six years and start no sooner than 2025.[20] In September 2022 the Restoration and Renewal Client Board, a joint committee of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, was formed to oversee the necessary works.[21]
Exterior
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".[22]
Stonework
In 1839 Charles Barry toured Britain, looking at quarries and buildings, with a committee which included two leading geologists and a stonecarver.[23] They selected Anston, a sand-coloured magnesian limestone quarried in the villages of Anston, South Yorkshire, and Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire.[24] Two quarries were chosen from a list of 102, with the majority of the stone coming from the former. A crucial consideration was transport, achieved on water via the Chesterfield Canal, the North Sea and the rivers Trent and Thames.[25] Furthermore, Anston was cheaper, and "could be supplied in blocks up to four feet thick and lent itself to elaborate carving".[23]
View from the Westminster Bridge, highlighting the distinctive color of the stonework
Barry's new Palace of Westminster was rebuilt using the sandy-coloured Anston limestone. However the stone soon began to decay owing 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 even after much studying.[26] 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 by the outbreak of the Second World War and completed only during the 1950s. By the 1960s pollution had 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.[27]
Towers
The Victoria Tower
The Palace of Westminster has three main towers. The largest and tallest is the 98.5-metre (323 ft)[24] Victoria Tower, which occupies the south-western corner of the palace. The tower was an integral part of Barry's original design, and he intended it to be the most memorable element, conceiving it as the keep of a legislative "castle". The tower was redesigned several times, and its height increased progressively;[28] upon its completion in 1858 it was the tallest secular building in the world.[29]
At base of the tower is the Sovereign's Entrance, used by the monarch whenever entering the palace to open Parliament or for other state occasions. The 15 m (49 ft) high archway is richly decorated with sculptures, including statues of Saints George, Andrew and Patrick, and Queen Victoria.[30] The main body of the tower houses the Parliamentary Archives in 8.8 kilometres (5.5 mi) of steel shelves spread over 12 floors. The archives include the master copies of all Acts of Parliament since 1497 and important manuscripts such as the original Bill of Rights and the death warrant of King Charles I.[31] At the top of the cast-iron pyramidal roof is a 22 m (72 ft)[24] flagstaff, from which flies the Royal Standard (the monarch's personal flag) when the Sovereign is present in the palace. On all other days the Union Flag flies from the mast.[32]
The Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben)
At the north end of the palace is the Elizabeth Tower, commonly known as Big Ben. At 96 metres (315 ft) it is only slightly shorter than the Victoria Tower, but much slimmer.[24] It was called the Clock Tower until 2012, when it was renamed to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II. The Clock Tower was designed by Augustus Pugin and built after his death. Charles Barry asked Pugin to design the clock tower because Pugin had previously helped Barry design the palace.[33]
The tower houses the Great Clock, which uses the original mechanism built by Edward John Dent to designs by amateur horologist Edmund Beckett Denison.[34] It is highly accurate by nineteenth-century standards, striking the hour to within a second of the time, and remaining reliable since it entered service in 1859.[35] The time is shown on four dials 7 metres (23 ft) in diameter, which are made of milk glass and are lit from behind at night; the hour hand is 2.7 metres (8 ft 10 in) long and the minute hand 4.3 metres (14 ft).[36]
Five bells hang in the belfry above the clock. The four quarter bells strike the Westminster Chimes every quarter-hour.[37] The largest bell strikes the hours; officially called the "Great Bell", it is generally referred to as Big Ben, a nickname of uncertain origins which, over time, has been colloquially applied to the whole tower. The first hour bell cracked during testing and was recast;[38] the present bell later developed a crack of its own, which gives it a distinctive sound.[39] It is the third-heaviest bell in Britain, weighing 13.8 tonnes.[40][41] In the lantern at the top of Elizabeth Tower is the Ayrton Light, which is lit when either House of Parliament is sitting after dark. It was installed in 1885 at the request of Queen Victoria, so that she could see from Buckingham Palace whether the members were "at work", and named after Acton Smee Ayrton, who was First Commissioner of Works in the 1870s.[42][43]
Central Tower
Photograph
The Central Tower
The shortest of the palace's three principal towers (at 91 metres (299 ft)[24]), the octagonal Central Tower stands over the middle of the building, immediately above the Central Lobby. It was added to the plans on the insistence of Dr. David Boswell Reid, who was in charge of the ventilation of the new Houses of Parliament: his plan called for a central chimney through which what he called "vitiated air" would be drawn out of the building with the heat and smoke of about four hundred fires around the palace.[44] To accommodate the tower Barry was forced to lower the high ceiling he had planned for the Central Lobby and reduce the height of its windows;[45] however, the tower proved to be an opportunity to improve the palace's exterior design,[46] and Barry to make it a spire in order to balance the effect of the more massive lateral towers.[47] The Central Tower completely failed to fulfill its stated purpose, but it remains notable as "the first occasion when mechanical services had a real influence on architectural design,"[48] withstanding certain climate-specific architectural elements such as windcatchers.
Smaller towers
Some other features of the palace of Westminster are known as towers. St Stephen's Tower is positioned in the middle of the west front of the palace, between Westminster Hall and Old Palace Yard, and houses the public entrance to the palace.[49] The pavilions at the northern and southern ends of the river front are called Speaker's Tower and Chancellor's Tower respectively,[27] after the presiding officers of the two Houses at the time of the palace's reconstruction—the Speaker of the House of Commons and the Lord Chancellor. Speaker's Tower contains Speaker's House, the official residence of the Speaker of the Commons.[50]
As well as the pinnacles which rise from between the window bays along the fronts of the palace, numerous turrets enliven the building's skyline. Like the Central Tower these were built for practical reasons, as they mask ventilation shafts.
