Palace of Westminster

The Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is located in London, England. It is colloquially known as the Houses of Parliament after the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two legislative chambers which occupy the building. The palace is one of the centres of political life in the United Kingdom; "Westminster" has become a metonym for the UK Parliament and the British Government, and the Westminster system of government commemorates the name of the palace. The Elizabeth Tower of the palace houses the bell nicknamed Big Ben and is a landmark of London and the United Kingdom in general. The palace has been a Grade I listed building since 1970 and part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.

The building was originally constructed in the eleventh century as a royal palace and was the primary residence of the kings of England until 1512, when a fire destroyed the royal apartments. The monarch moved to the adjacent Palace of Whitehall, but the remainder of the palace continued to serve as the home of the Parliament of England, which had met there since the 13th century. In 1834 a second, larger fire destroyed the majority of the palace, but the twelfth century Westminster Hall was saved and incorporated into the replacement building.

The competition to design the new palace was won by the architect Charles Barry, who chose a Gothic Revival style for the building. Construction started in 1840 and lasted for 30 years, suffering delays, cost overruns, and the deaths of Barry and his assistant, Augustus Pugin. This new palace is notable for its ornate decoration, and contributed to the proliferation of Gothic Revival architecture in other places. The palace contains chambers for the House of Commons, House of Lords, and the monarch, and has a floor area of 1,210,680 ft2 (112,476 m2).

Text adapted from “Palace of Westminster” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Palace of Westminster ranks #12 of 5,814 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #4 of the 183 mapped in England. Founded 1097, it is older than 90% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 187 atlas entries founded in the 11th century. See how England compares in the castle statistics.

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