Palace of Westminster

About Palace of Westminster

Meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, located in London, England, UK

The Palace of Westminster, colloquially known as the Houses of Parliament, is the meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the elected House of Commons and the House of Lords, standing on the north bank of the Thames in the City of Westminster in the heart of London and owned by the Crown. "Westminster" has become a metonym for the UK Parliament and government, the Westminster system of government commemorates its name, and the Elizabeth Tower houses the bell nicknamed Big Ben, a landmark of London and Britain. The palace has been Grade I listed since 1970 and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987 together with Westminster Abbey and St Margaret's Church. The building was originally constructed in the 11th century as a royal palace and was the primary residence of the kings of England until 1512, when a fire destroyed the royal apartments and the monarch moved to the adjacent Palace of Whitehall, while the rest of the palace continued as the home of the Parliament of England, which had met there since the 13th century. In 1834 a second, larger fire destroyed most of the palace, but the 11th-century Westminster Hall was saved and incorporated into the replacement building, whose design competition was won by Charles Barry in the Gothic Revival style with his assistant Augustus Pugin; construction began in 1840 and lasted thirty years amid delays, cost overruns and the deaths of both architects. The palace has some 1,200 rooms, a hundred staircases and more than three kilometres of corridors, making it one of the largest parliament buildings in the world. The House of Commons sits to the north with its green leather benches and the House of Lords to the south with red; Wikivoyage calls it the "Mother of All Parliaments", an exaggeration but only a slight one, and visitors can watch debates from the public galleries or join guided tours on Saturdays and during recesses.

Where:

London, United Kingdom