THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT By: Andrés Zamora Escudero Rubén Vergara del Valle Daniel Romero Lozano

INFORMATION The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the UK. Its name, which derives from the neighbouring Westminster Abbey, may refer to the Old Palace, that was destroyed by fire in 1834, and its replacement, the New Palace that stands today. The first royal palace was built on the site in the eleventh century, and Westminster was the primary residence of the Kings of England. The competition for the reconstruction of the Palace was won by the architect Charles Barry. The Palace is one of the centres of political life in the UK.

TOWERS The Palace of Westminster features three main towers. Of these, the largest and tallest is 98.5 metre (Victoria Tower). Originally named "The King’s Tower " because the fire of 1834 occurred during the reign of King William IV. At the north end of the Palace rises the most famous of the towers, Elizabeth Tower, known as Big Ben. Five bells hang in the belfry above the clock. The four quarter bells strike the Westminster Chimes every quarter hour. The largest bell was called The Great Bell of Westminster and strikes the hours. The shortest of the Palace’s three principal towers is the octagonal Central Tower.

OLD PALACE The Palace of Westminster site was strategically important during the Middle Ages, as it was located on the banks of the River Thames. The Palace of Westminster was the monarch’s principal residence in the late Medieval period. The old Palace was a complex of buildngs. It was separated from the river Thames in the east by a series of gardens. The largest and nothernmost building is Westminster Hall, which lies parallel to the river. The Palace complex was substantially remodelled once again, this time by Sir. John Soane, between 1824 and 1827.

INTERIOR The Palace of Westminster contains over 1.100 rooms, 100 staircases and 4,8 kilometres of passageways, which are spread over four floors. Some of the interiors were designed and painted by J.G Crace, working in colaboration with Pugin and others.

ROYAL GALLERY Immediately north of the Robing Room is the Royal Gallery. At 33,5 by 13,7 metres, it is one of the largest rooms in the palace. The decorative scheme of the Royal Gallery was meant to display important moments in British military history, and the walls are decorated by two large paintings by Daniel Maclise, each measuring 13,7 by 3,7 metres: The Death of Nelson and the Meeting of Wellington and Blücher.

PRINCE’S CHAMBER The Prince`s chamber is a small room between the Royal Gallery and the Lords chamber. It’s a place where members of the lords meet to discuss business of the House. The room also contains a Queen Victoria’s statue, she is seated on a throne and holding a laurel crown.

CENTRAL LOBBY The Central Lobby is the heart of the Palace of Westminster. The Central Lobby measures 18 metres across and 23 metres from the floor to the centre of the vaulted ceiling.

WESTMINSTER HALL Westminster Hal, the oldest existing part of the Palace of Westminster, was erected in 1097, at which point it was the largest hall in Europe. It was primarily used for judicial purposes and for ceremonial functions.

FIRE AND RECONSTRUCTION On October 1834, a fire broke out in the Palace after an overheated stove used to destroy the Exchequer's stockpile of tally sticks set fire to the House of Lords Chamber. Although most of the work had been carried out by 1860, construction was not finished until a decade afterwards.

INCIDENTS A famous attempt to breach the security of the Palace of Westminster was the failed Gunpowder plot of 1605. The plot was a conspiracy among a group of Roman Catholic gentry to re-establish Catholicism in England by assassinating the Protestand King James I and replacing him with a Catholic monarch. The New Palace became the target of Fenian bombs on 24 January 1885, along with the Tower of London. On 17 June 1974, a 9-kilogram bomb planted by the Provisional IRA exploded in Westminster Hall. Early in the morning of 20 March 2004, two Greenpeace members scaled the Elizabeth Tower to demonstrate against the Iraq War. In February 2008, five campaigners from the Plane Stupid group gained admittance to the building as visitors and then moved up to the roof to demonstrate against the proposed expansion of Heathrow Airport.

THE END