Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament. Accession number WOA 1978
Today I went on a tour of the Houses of Parliament. As they’re currently preparing for the State Opening of Parliament (Wednesday 18 November 2009) the Robing Room, which the Queen will use on the day, was not open to the public. But I did get to see Westminster Hall, St Stephen’s Hall, the Lords Chamber and the Commons Chamber. More about that later, but first, how the Houses of Parliament came to catch on fire.
Up until 1826, the Exchequer, which was housed in the Palace of Westminster, was recording its income with tally sticks. Tally sticks are pieces of wood with notches carved into them to represent a payment – the higher the payment, the bigger the notch. The stick was then split in two to provide payer and payee with a receipt. In 1826 the government decided to upgrade its technology, and was left with two cartloads of redundant tally sticks. On 16 October 1834 the Clerk of Works decided to burn them in stoves in the basement of the House of Lords. With the result you can see above.
Most of the buildings on the site were destroyed in the fire. They were rebuilt in the Gothic style over more than thirty years, at a cost of more than £2 million. In May 1941, incendiary bombs fell on the Commons Chamber and burnt it down again. Undaunted, Winston Churchill ordered it rebuilt exactly as it was before.
Find out more: online
Next: shivering in the nine-hundred-year-old Great Hall
Tags: best of flickr, houses of parliament, palace of westminster, second world war, state opening of parliament, tally sticks
