Power & Politics

A political history of Britain in the places where it happened: parliament and palace, courts and counting houses, and the streets where people pushed back.

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Westminster Hall

The 900-year-old hall the British state grew up around.

Government & Parliament

Photo by Sir James, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Finished for William II in 1099, and so far too big for ordinary court life that it can only have been meant to impress. Richard II gave it the roof still overhead in the 1390s: about 660 tonnes of oak, framed near Farnham and brought here by wagon and barge, spanning the hall on hammer beams without a single column - the largest medieval timber roof in northern Europe. Everything else gathered around it. The royal law courts sat here for centuries, and so did the trials of William Wallace, Thomas More, Guy Fawkes and Charles I. Monarchs lie in state on the same stone floor. It is four hundred years older than the palace attached to it.

Where
Palace of Westminster, SW1A 0AA
Nearest station
Westminster · 2 min walk

Tours, booked ahead

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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.

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