Houses of Parliament

HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT

The May 2010 General Election in the United Kingdom resulted in the first ‘hung parliament’ since 1974. The political parties negotiated with each other in an attempt to form stable government and at times it verged towards brinkmanship. The finer points of the detailed talks were thrashed out well into the early hours of each passing day. The media grew ever more frenzied and audience viewing figures for news broadcasts rose dramatically. The Liberal Democrats flirted back and forth, the Labour Party wooed them but the talks stuttered. Before long they had settled back where they had started, trying to deliver a deal with the Tories. Both sides, feeling the weight of history, concentrated on the key issues and were able to cast a number of differences aside. The personal interplay between the two leaders was crucial and eventually a deal was sealed. The United Kingdom had its first coalition government for seventy years. The theatrical setting for this new and unfamiliar politics of coalition is the Houses of Parliament.

The Houses of Parliament are the two chambers that form the upper and lower houses, they being the House of Commons and the House of Lords. They are situated at opposite ends of The Palace of Westminster. This written piece does not allow for an examination of the British political system, but will instead concentrate on a very brief history and description of the building itself, which is familiar to many millions of people across the four compass points of the world. 

The Palace of Westminster stands on the site of a royal palace that has existed since the time of Edward The Confessor. It was later expanded by William The Conqueror. Today, the oldest remaining part of The Palace of Westminster is the Westminster Hall, which was built by William II in 1087. On New Year’s Day in 1236, Henry III chose Westminster Hall as the setting to provide a feast for six thousand of London’s poorest people. Richard II added the ‘hammer beamed’ roof to Westminster Hall, existing to the present day, it is one of the finest timbered roofs of any building in the world. The Westminster Hall is usually empty and entirely bare of ornament, which has the effect of drawing the eye up to the majestic roof and at sixty-nine feet, it is the largest medieval span in Europe. Both Guy Fawkes and King Charles I were tried in the hall. Its walls witnessed the installation of Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector and some years later his head was exposed on a pole from the roof. A number of monarchs, politicians and notable figures have been laid in state in the Westminster Hall. Three hundred thousand people passed through the hall in 1898 when Gladstone was laid in state and later as many again for Winston Churchill and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

Henry VIII broke the tradition of The Palace of Westminster being a residence of the reigning monarch. He moved the short distance to the palace at Whitehall, leaving The Palace of Westminster to the politicians and the lawyers of the royal law courts. Members of Parliament had first met there in the year 1265, but it only became the permanent site for parliament in 1547. After three hundred years of political intrigue, The Palace of Westminster burned down on October 16, 1834. A young Augustus Pugin observed the fire and prophetically said, “There is nothing much to regret and a great deal to rejoice in.” By the middle of the nineteenth century Londoners were weary of the grace and austerity of the many developments that seemed to have been exclusively designed by John Nash. Sir Charles Barry was commissioned to refashion the palace in an orgy of Perpendicular Gothic and the slow process of rebuilding began in 1840 and it was only fully completed thirty years later.

Sir Charles Barry only brought Augustus Pugin in to the project due to his lameness in a leg, initially to design the fittings and decorations for the House of Lords. However, Augustus Pugin went much further and provided many other detailed drawings and designed much more than had been originally planned. His contributions ensured that the interior of the House of Lords is considered the finest specimen of Gothic civil architecture in Europe. Augustus Pugin, born in Bedford Square in London in 1812, was said to have grown up, ‘a lover of medieval shapes, a student of theatre design, a hater of beer and tobacco, an inmate of Bedlam and one the greatest advocates of Christian architecture.’ Pugin threw himself into the project like a man possessed, a typical example being his throne in the House of Lords, which is considered to be invested with every idea that Pugin ever had.

The Houses of Parliament sit beneath three towers, the smallest of which is The Central Tower, which acts as a ventilation shaft. The Clock Tower, housing Big Ben, lies at the north end (see earlier blog: BIG BEN) and to the south stands the vast Victoria Tower. Inside the Victoria Tower are housed over one and a half million documents relating to parliamentary matters, all of the ballot papers for a year after a general election and every law passed in this country. When parliament is sitting the Union Flag flies above the Victoria Tower and when it is not the pole is usually flagless, excepting when the Monarch is attending the state opening of parliament and the Royal Standard waves atop. The fifty-five feet tall archway below the Victoria Tower serves as the royal entrance to the building and through it the Monarch enters for the state opening of parliament. No sovereign entered The House Of Commons since Charles I attempted to arrest five members in 1641 through until 1950, when George VI visited the rebuilt chamber after restoration from severe damage suffered during the Second World War.

The Palace of Westminster covers an area of eight acres. It has eleven courtyards, one hundred staircases, eleven hundred apartments and two miles of passages. There is a post office, travel agent, hairdresser, gymnasium, souvenir shop and almost as many amenities as are found on an ocean liner. Curiously, what is lacking are enough seats in the House of Commons, as there are only 602 seats for the 650 Members of Parliament. A portent maybe, as there are increasing murmurings that it is time to drastically reduce the number of Members of Parliament. With a reduction in numbers, the remaining representatives would have somewhere to sit. The Palace Of Westminster also has a prison cell and a police station. Emmaline Pankhurst was the last person to be incarcerated there.

The televising of debates in the House of Lords began in 1985 and the House of Commons followed suit in 1989. With the coming of television, the general public was better able to observe many of the objects used in parliamentary rituals. The Woolsack in The House of Lords is a plain cushioned ottoman stuffed with wool and was occupied by the Lord Chancellor (Lord Speaker since 2006) as presiding officer in the House of Lords. The Woolsack was adopted in the reign of Edward III as a reminder of the importance to England of the wool trade. Close to the Lords’ Chamber is the Peers’ Lobby, where are displayed the arms of six dynasties of English rulers, Saxon, Norman, Plantagenet, Tudor, Stuart and Hanoverian. At the heart of the building is the Central Lobby, also familiar to many as it is where television news reporters are frequently interviewed by anchors.

In the House of Commons the chair in which the Speaker sits came from Australia. Before it, the table on which the mace rests during the sittings came from Canada. To the north of the Commons is the Speaker’s House, the name given to the rooms occupied by The Speaker of The House Of Commons and the apartment is positioned close to Big Ben. It is where the state bedroom is located, the bed originally made for kings and queens on which to rest before the day of their coronation. Never used, it was moved and then lost during the Second World War and later discovered in a Welsh barn. The Speaker has use of a beautiful octagonal table designed by Pugin who, incidentally, never designed either a round or a square table.

There is public admission to the Strangers Gallery in the House of Commons by queuing at the doorway at the St Stephen’s Entrance near to the statue of Richard The Lionheart, which is in the same vicinity as the peers entrance to The House Of Lords. For admission to observe Prime Minister’s Questions (12 -12.30pm on Wednesdays, when parliament is in session) entry is by appointment only and in advance. To obtain a ticket write to your own Member of Parliament or your embassy. Once inside the Strangers Gallery, visitors can look down on proceedings through a glass screen. In 2004 activists for ‘Fathers 4 Justice’ threw flour filled with purple dye from the gallery, down at Tony Blair, which resulted in the installation of the glass screen. On the opposite side is the press gallery, which contains 161 seats for parliamentary correspondents. During the summer recess, when Parliament is not in session, there are guided tours of The Palace of Westminster, the precise details of which change from year to year.

Where to view Houses of Parliament and video clips of London
London in Motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Houses of Parliament’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.