Westminster Abbey Precincts - Chapter House Garden / The Close

The Palace of Westminster, now more widely referred to as the Houses of Parliament, has its origins in medieval times, when the construction of a royal palace was prompted by royal interest in the Benedictine Abbey that had been established here in the C10th, itself growing out of an C8th Saxon church dedicated to St Peter. The Danish King Cnut was the first monarch to build a palace at Westminster in the early C11th, and subsequently Edward the Confessor built both Westminster Abbey and his new Palace adjacent, dying just after the Abbey was completed in 1066. William the Conqueror also adopted the palace and abbey at Westminster, where he was crowned. In 1097-99 his son William II built the Great Hall, now known as Westminster Hall, which was used for important ceremonial events, and from thence Westminster gradually gained precedence as the centre of government over Winchester Castle, which had previously acted as the Anglo-Saxon capital of England. Westminster's importance was firmly established in the reign of Henry III who constructed new buildings, with a royal throne placed in Westminster Hall by 1245. In the East Cloister of Westminster Abbey is the large octagonal Chapter House, which was built in the 1250s, used by the monks for daily prayers and the reading of a chapter from the Rule of St Benedict. From 1257 it was also where the King's Great Council met, paving the way for what became the English Parliament. From the C13th Westminster was the meeting place of the Lords and the Commons, who from 1341 met separately, initially in various chambers and halls of the palace or abbey rather than purpose-built spaces. In the C14th the House of Commons regularly used the Chapter House before moving to the Palace of Westminster and from the 1540s the Chapter House was used to store government records. It was later restored by Sir Gilbert Scott. Westminster Palace became the permanent seat of Parliament in 1512 after Henry VIII moved his residence to the Palace of Whitehall. However, it remained a royal palace and was controlled by the Lord Great Chamberlain of the monarch until as late as 1965 when control passed to representatives of the two Houses. From medieval times until 1801 the Lords sat in the Queen's Chamber and then moved to the Lesser Hall. The Commons had a permanent meeting place for the first time in 1547 when Edward VI permitted them to use St Stephen's Chapel. Alterations were made to the parliament buildings in the late C18th and early C19th firstly by James Wyatt and then by Sir John Soane, but in 1834 a devastating fire destroyed much of the palace, including the Commons Chamber.

The Palace of Westminster and Houses of Parliament that exist today date in the main from the mid C19th rebuilding, designed by Sir Charles Barry (1795-1860) following a public competition in 1835. Barry worked on the designs with Augustus Welby Pugin (1812-1852) and construction of the new buildings began in 1840 but, although largely in place by 1860, it was not until 1870 that they were fully completed. The site of the parliamentary estate was extended to c.3.24 hectares by reclaiming land from the river.

The medieval palace had two main courtyards, Old Palace Yard and New Palace Yard, the latter named after William II's 'new' Westminster Hall, the oldest of the buildings on the parliamentary estate today, although much remodelled since that time. Other survivals from the medieval buildings are the Cloisters and Chapter House of St Stephen's, the Chapel of St Mary's Undercroft and the Jewel Tower adjacent to Abingdon Street Gardens (q.v.), which, together with Chapter House Garden was once part of the Old Palace Yard. At one time there were cottages on Old Palace Yard, one of which was rented by Guy Fawkes and his confederates, from where they initially began to tunnel to the House of Lords. At the failure of their Gunpowder Plot they were later hanged on a scaffold erected in Old Palace Yard. The main part of Old Palace Yard, which retains the name, is east of St Margaret Street and now houses a statue of Richard the Lionheart by Baron Marochetti, a model of which was first shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Although the Benedictine monastery was dissolved in 1539, Westminster Abbey became the seat of a bishop in 1540 and was designated as a cathedral until Queen Mary was on the throne, when the old religion was restored and the abbey once again had an abbot, together with 15 monks. On Queen Elizabeth I's accession in 1558, a dean and prebendaries were put in place at Westminster Abbey.