The Palace of Westminster stretches for nearly a thousand feet along the Thames, and it is the definitive image of British government. It is also, despite appearances, mostly Victorian.
The fire
The medieval palace burned down on 16 October 1834. The cause was almost comically mundane: two workmen were told to dispose of a large quantity of obsolete wooden tally sticks — the Exchequer’s ancient accounting records — and decided to burn them in the furnaces beneath the House of Lords. The flues overheated, the building caught, and by morning almost all of it was gone.
Thousands watched from the riverbanks. Turner was among them and painted the scene twice.
The rebuilding
Charles Barry won the competition to replace it, with Gothic Revival specified in the brief as the appropriately national and Christian style. Barry provided the symmetrical plan; Augustus Pugin provided the extraordinary Gothic detail — every wallpaper, tile, door handle, inkstand and umbrella stand, obsessively designed.
Pugin worked himself into collapse and died in 1852 at 40, before the building was finished. It took thirty years in total.
What survived
Westminster Hall, built in 1097, escaped the fire and is the oldest part of the palace. Its hammerbeam roof, added in the 1390s, is the largest medieval timber roof in northern Europe and spans the space without a single supporting pillar.
The hall has held the trials of William Wallace, Thomas More and Charles I, and it is where monarchs lie in state — most recently Elizabeth II in 2022, when hundreds of thousands filed through it.
Colour coding
The Commons is green; the Lords is red. The scheme runs through everything — benches, carpets, stationery, the ribbons on official papers — and it is a quick way to tell which chamber you are looking at on television.
The Lords is by far the more opulent, with a gilded throne beneath a canopy, because it was designed for the monarch’s use. The monarch is forbidden by convention from entering the Commons at all.
The state it is in
The palace is in serious disrepair. There is asbestos throughout, the stonework is eroding, the plumbing and electrics are decades past their life, and fire safety staff patrol the building continuously — there have been dozens of incidents that could have become serious fires.
A full restoration would cost billions and would be far cheaper and faster if both Houses moved out entirely. Parliament has repeatedly declined to commit to leaving, the estimates have risen with every delay, and the argument continues.
Visiting
UK residents can book free tours through their MP; overseas visitors can buy tickets for tours on Saturdays and during recess. You can also watch debates from the public galleries for free, including Prime Minister’s Questions if you are prepared to queue.