Britain – September 2019

BRITAIN (^17)
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
http://www.britain-magazine.com
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HOLLY SCHOLFIELD
f the walls of Westminster Hall, the oldest part of
the predominantly Victorian Houses of Parliament,
could talk, their 1,000-year tale would be epic
in scope and unparalleled in incident. For, more
than any other single building, its stone walls, dating
from 1097, have borne witness to a millennium’s worth
of nation-shaping events and played host to everyone
who has ever been anyone in British politics.
It is here that the fates of Guy Fawkes, William Wallace,
Thomas More and Charles I were sealed, each tried and
sentenced to death in this room. It is where Richard II
was deposed; where King Henry VIII and later Elizabeth
I’s coronation banquets were held; where George V,
George VI, Winston Churchill and, most recently, the
Queen Mother lay in state; and where the great and
good have addressed the houses, from Nelson Mandela
to Barack Obama.
Its constant evolution is underlined by two recent
additions: the Diamond Jubilee window at one end, given
by MPs (Members of Parliament) to Queen Elizabeth II
in 2012, and New Dawn at the other, a 2016 artwork
commemorating the unwavering efforts of the women’s
suffrage movements to establish equal votes for women.
That the hall survives at all is thanks to some judicious
and ruthless decision-making. For when, in 1834, the
authorities wanted to burn two cartloads of tally sticks,
relics of an outdated Exchequer accounting system,
the Clerk of Works made the fateful decision to do so
in two under-oor stoves in the basement of the House
of Lords. Fast forward a few hours and the upper house
was ablaze, followed, inevitably, by the rest of the palace;
the re-boats stationed on the Thames could do little
but watch in horror as the river’s low tide thwarted any
attempt to deliver water.
The decision was made to sacrice the rest of the
building to save Westminster Hall. Naturally, the re was
front-page news, covered by all the papers, including by
a young reporter named Charles Dickens, as well as being
immortalised in paint by one JMW Turner. For some
Victorians, the blaze was divine retribution for the earlier
Great Reform Act of 1832, a change to the electoral system
as divisive then as Brexit is today.
Yet for visitors joining a tour, the jewel that emerged
from the wreckage only serves to add interest and layered
history to the experience. In large part, that is thanks to
Charles Barry, the architect who won the competition
in the wake of the inferno. His triumphant design ushers
visitors through 1,000 years of history, starting with the
Normans who built Westminster Hall. He enlisted the help
of a young Augustus Pugin, the Gothic Revivalist architect
chiey responsible for the interior of the building. Neither
man would see the end result, which only partially adhered
to their original design; both had died by its completion,
some 30 years later, in 1870.