PARLIAMENT

The Palace of Westminster

The Houses of Parliament meet in the Palace of Westminster, a building that legally is still a royal palace. In the 11^thC King Edward the Confessor, the last of the Anglo-Saxon kings, built his principal residence upon the site.

New Palace Yard (on the plot's north-western corner) takes its name from a late 11^thC plan that never progressed beyond the completion of Westminster Hall (1099).

In the 14^thC, during the reign of King Edward III, the two Houses of Parliament separated from one another and began to develop their own distinct identities. The Commons's sessions were held in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey. The Lords remained in the palace, occupying a chamber in the complex s southern portion.

In 1512 the palace was damaged by a fire. The subsequent repairs that were carried out to its structure were only partial. In 1530 King Henry VIII saved himself the expense of further building work by moving the court a couple of hundred yards downstream to York Palace, which he renamed Whitehall Palace. He left behind the judiciary and the legislature.¹

On 16 October 1834 a fire was organised so that some redundant tally sticks could be destroyed.² This ran out of control. Most of the surviving medieval complex burned down. The artist J.M.W. Turner took sketches of the conflagration that he subsequently worked up into a painting.³ The only parts of the old Palace to survive were the Cloisters, the Jewel Tower, St Mary Undercroft (St Stephen's crypt), and Westminster Hall.

Location: Parliament Square, SW1A 0AA (purple, blue)

The Jewel Tower, Abingdon Street, SW1P 3JY (orange, brown)

Website: www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace

¹. Until 1882 the principal courts for England and Wales sat in Westminster Hall during the legal term.

². The sticks were pieces of wood used to record receipts for payments to the Treasury; notches were cut into them to record the amount of money paid. In 1826 they had been superseded by the use of indented cheques.

³. Turner's picture of the burning down of the Palace of Westminster is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. (www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/103831l)

Pugin and Barry

A competition was held to rebuild the Palace. There were 97 submissions. Charles Barry's was selected. Essentially Barry designed a large country house - a long central range set between two pavilions. Upon viewing the building from the river side, Pugin was to comment that the building was Grecian, being Tudor details on a Classic body. The need to accommodate its heating and ventilation system was to lead to the Palace to become more Gothic in appearance than it would have been otherwise.

Building work was started in 1840. Four years later he put Augustus Pugin in charge of the complex's interiors. His decorative work both stressed Parliament's medieval origins and sought to create a level of architectural harmony with Westminster Abbey, which neighboured it. Despite there being no provenance for such, he designed medieval-style gas lamps and umbrella stands.

Barry treated him appallingly. He excluded the man's name from the published list of his assistants and did not admit that it had been Pugin who had devised the idea that St Stephen's Tower should be built.

In the mid-19^thC stonemasons were regarded as the aristocrats of craftsmen. Many members of the trade were attracted by the political progressivism of Chartism. Following the collapse of the Chartist Movement, it often became necessary for Chartists to mask their political views, otherwise they risked dismissal. The rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster prompted the clustering together of hundreds of pro-Chartist stonemasons.

The Lords moved into their new Chamber in 1847 and the Commons into theirs five years later. The building was finished in 1888.

The Palace is reputed to be a world apart from London. During the winter the building is said to smell of toast.¹

In 2012 the Parliamentary authorities marked Queen Elizabeth II's diamond jubilee by changing the name of the tower that houses Big Ben from St Stephen's Tower to the Elizabeth Tower. Seven years later the H.P. Sauce label was redesigned so that it incorporated the scaffolding that then clad the tower.

See Also: BELLS Big Ben

Website: www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/architecture/palacestructure/the-architects

¹. In taxi slang the Houses of Parliament are known as The Gasworks .

Liquid Refreshment

Bloody Awful

One of the means by which some prime ministers try to keep their own backbenchers loyal is to occasionally socialise with them in the tea rooms. The Conservative premier Edward Heath had limited social skills. Despite this fact, (Sir) Timothy Kitson (1931-2019), his Parliamentary Private Secretary, encouraged him to try to schmooze with the party rank-and-file M.P.s. As a result, one day Heath went to the Smoking Room, picked up a newspaper, ordered a whisky and did not speak to anyone. He made a second sortie. In an attempt to make small talk, he declared to one M.P. That was a bloody awful speech you gave today.

The Kremlin

Until the 1987 general election there was a tendency for the Labour M.P.s who sat for constituencies in North-Eastern England to be modestly-educated, trades union-sponsored men who were native to the region. At Westminster, they tended to drink together in the Strangers Bar, which, as a result, was nicknamed The Kremlin. Its barman Ted Mitchell was famously obtuse.

It is reputed that within the Bar, by its entrance, there used to be a sign that had the words Way Out printed upon it. It had been placed a few inches above the ground.

Robert Maxwell

Robert Maxwell was a disgraced newspaper owner who died in mysterious circumstances in 1991. At the time, the finances of his business empire were imploding. However, during the 1960s he had been a Labour M.P.. While he had been the Chairman of the House of Commons Catering Committee, he had managed to generate a profit for it. He had achieved this rare feat by selling the Chamber's excellent wine cellar ... to himself.

Taunting The Tourists

The Palace of Westminster has a terrace that overlooks the Thames. During the summer a bar is erected upon it. Lord Fitt was a widely respected life peer. It is reputed that, whenever he was drinking there and saw a sight-seeing boat passing by on the river, he would hold up a fullish glass, use his other hand to point towards it, and shout out, It's all free, you know!

The State Opening of Parliament

Each autumn the State Opening of Parliament marks the start of the Parliamentary session. Present at it, in their official capacity, are an array of exotically titled officials from both the Palace of Westminster and the Royal Household - e.g. Black Rod, the Howard Pursuivant Extraordinary, and Bluemantle Pursuivant. The ceremony starts with the House of Commons being formally summoned from their Chamber (by Black Rod) to hear the Queen s Speech in the House of Lords. In this address, the government's intended legislative programme for the forthcoming Parliamentary session is set out. The sovereign reads it out while sitting upon the throne in the Upper House.

See Also: THE GUNPOWDER PLOT

Website: www.parliament.uk/about/how/occasions/stateopening

David Backhouse 2024