Westminster Great Hall, London, UK
1,167 views · Published 11 April 2011 · 2:53 · Indexed 27 September 2026
Channel: Alan Heath · 2011 · Travel & Events
SEE MY HISTORY GROUP ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alan-Heaths-History-Page/173472422695696 Westminster Hall is the oldest building in Parliament and almost the only part of the ancient Palace of Westminster which survives in almost its original form. It was built in 1097 under William II (Rufus), the son of William the Conqueror, and was completed two years later. The Hall was probably the largest hall in Europe at that time. Measuring 73 by 20 metres, it had a floor area covering 1,547 square metres. The Hall was so large that other halls were needed at Westminster for normal use. The mystery about the Hall is the form of its original roof. Not until the 13th or 14th century could carpenters create roofs significantly wider than the length of the available timber, and so it was assumed that a single or double row of columns was needed to support the Hall's roof. Recent archaeological explorations found no evidence of these, and that the roof may have been self-supporting from the beginning. The Hall was enclosed with stone walls two metres thick; these largely remain today, though heightened and refaced. Construction of the hammer beam roof was largely undertaken by the King's chief mason Henry Yevele and the carpenter Hugh Herland. In redesigning the roof, Herland fashioned oak beams to serve as horizontal supports fixed to the walls which Yevele strengthened by massive buttresses. Wooden arches joined to the top of these beams met centrally in a span of 18 metres or more. Onto these arches the craftsmen built the slopes of the roof, with its weight borne by the hammer-beams supported in their turn by the buttressed walls. The construction of the roof was an exceedingly complex and dangerous operation, given the size and weight of the timber and lifting it up 28 metres. The result is a vast, clear space unobstructed by a single column. The roof's timberwork was entirely framed near Farnham in Surrey. A large number of wagons and barges delivered the jointed timbers to Westminster, weighing some 660 tons, for assembly. The money for this project was raised by by compelling those who had fled or been banished from the country, and wished to return to their native soil, to purchase a licence for that purpose for a considerable sum. Outside, the roof was covered with lead, weighing about 176 tons. Major restorations were made to Westminster Hall from the 1740s onwards. For most of the 1740s, the hall's hammer-beams were supported by props because of the poor state of the roof. No repairs were made until someone decided to sell the lead from the roof to defray the cost of the work and replace it with Westmorland slates. Removing the lead revealed such extensive decay that the repairs cost nearly twice as much as estimated. The Hall has been roofed with slate ever since. In 1818, John Soane declared the north facade to be in a dangerous state of dilapidation and completely rebuilt it between 1819 and 1822. During remodelling a fire broke out on 16 October 1834. When the fire service arrived, the House of Lords was already destroyed and the Commons was ablaze. By then, the flames had also spread close to the wooden roof of Westminster Hall. The Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, quickly directed efforts to douse the roof with water, which saved the Hall although much of the rest of the Palace was lost. The fire fighters in the Hall were aided by scaffolding which had been erected for repairs, the thickness of the medieval walls and a slight but sufficient change in the direction of the wind during the night. In 1913, an inspection of the Hall's roof beams revealed that they were seriously affected by death-watch beetle, so much so that four out of the thirteen trusses were in danger of collapse. The wall-posts were almost all useless and some cavities were so excavated by beetles that a full-grown man could lie in them completely hidden from sight. From 1914-23 the entire roof was reinforced by concealed steelwork, and the decayed portions replaced with new oak from Wadhurst in Kent. This did not eliminate the beetle completely; nor was it achieved in 1971 with canisters of smoke pesticide. On the night of 10 May 1941, the Commons Chamber and Westminster Hall were both hit by bombs. The Chamber rapidly became an inferno, while flames began to spread to the hammer-beams of the Hall. The Hall was saved by the decisiveness of Walter Elliot, a former Cabinet minister. He was told by the Fire Service that it would be impossible to save both the Hall and the Chamber - it had to be one or the other. He had no hesitation in advising them to concentrate on saving the medieval Hall. He remarked to a friend years later, they could always build a new Commons Chamber, while the Hall was irreplaceable.
