Historian Guided Tour of the Houses of Parliament

The Palace of Westminster, one of the most beautiful, one of the most iconic, one of the most historic buildings in Britain, in the world. Home of the UK Parliament, a thousand years of history on this site, from the so-called Big Ben clock tower up there to the House of Commons, the House of Lords, this place is British history in one building and I've got exclusive special permission to do a historical guided tour for all of you. Let's go. For me, this is the highlight of the Palace of Westminster. This is the heart of the Palace of Westminster because this is where the history is. This is Westminster Hall. This is the oldest part of this building. It's pretty much the oldest, well, one of the oldest buildings surviving in Britain, still being used on a daily basis. This is nearly a thousand years old. Built 1097, probably finished 1099. It is a spectacular medieval hall. It is in fact, The largest medieval hall in England and possibly in Europe at the time as well. It really talks about the confidence and the wealth of Norman England right there at the end of the 11th century. Just look at the size of this space up there, that roof. That actually dates from slightly later. That is a magnificent oak hammer beam roof built by Richard II in the 1390s. And in this room... Everything has happened. I cannot tell you, probably the most historic space in England, in the UK. The people that have walked along these floors have included prime ministers, kings, rebels, foreign leaders, you name it, anyone who's anyone. On the floor here, you've got a series of plaques talking about just some of the notable events. You've got Warren Hastings, the famous trial of Warren Hastings that tore 18th century Britain apart. You've got Sir Thomas More, Henry VIII's closest advisor, now condemned to death by King Henry for disagreements over religion. Look at this, Winston Churchill, the famous wartime prime minister. After his death, he lay in state here as people filed past. The same is true of Edward VII, he lay in state here. Gladstone, four times prime minister lay in state here, but we keep coming up. There we go, Elizabeth II, that. Famously long queue, one of history's longest lines as people shuffled along waiting to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth II. That's where it took place. Other monarchs lay in state here as well. But this is not just a place of kings and queens and emperors. This is a place of raw power. It was here that William Wallace, the Scottish rebel, was dragged and forced to stand trial as a traitor. And his defence was quite simple. I cannot be guilty of treason. I am not a traitor because I was never a subject of the English King. It didn't save him on this occasion. He was taken out of here. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered, but it made him a legend. And as we mount these steps here, this is a very special thing. This is where people address the assembled politicians. Look here, Nelson Mandela, president of South Africa, a foreign leader, once a prisoner. He stood here and addressed both houses of parliament. That's true of Barack Obama. It's true of Volodymyr Zelensky, but come up here, it's one of my favourite spots right here. This is a big one, folks, this is a big one. King Charles I stood trial right here. He was the King of England, the King of Scotland, and he was put on trial by Parliament for treason to his own country. The first time a royal head of state had ever been tried and found guilty and would be taken out and executed, the first time that ever happened in history, That took place right here as well. And there's plenty more history this way. We've got to continue walking up these stairs here. Actually, you pass a... Beautiful stained glass window. That is a monument to all of the people, the members of the House of Commons, House of Lords, killed in the Second World War. Got some interesting ones up there. You've got the Duke of Kent right up there. He's a son of the sovereign, Duke of Kent. He was killed. You've got the Duke of Wellington there as well. There's some very senior peers of the realm, among the many killed. And then this is a war memorial for the members of the houses killed in the First World War and their children. Oh look, yeah, this is interesting. You've got Asquith here, Raymond Asquith, Lieutenant Raymond Asquith. So that's the son of the prime minister. He was killed in 1916, I think. So as you can see, the First World War there, a tragedy for families, no matter who you are in the kingdom, even if you're the prime minister. Let's keep going. Oh, now look at this. This is interesting. It's a new artwork by Mary Branson. It's called New Dawn. And there's 168 discs. They move up and down. They change in their light intensity depending on the rising and falling of the tide. And that reflects the long march towards equality for women in our electoral system. This is such an important space here, this has got so much history because this room is built to the exact dimensions of the original St Stephen's Chapel. This was the chapel in the royal palace where the medieval kings said fine I'll allow parliament, the great men of the kingdom come together to meet in here to advise. Right here where I'm standing now there was little sort of, there was little fence, little dividing partition and people would vote by going around one end or the other and if you couldn't decide which way you wanted to vote you just come and Lean on this fence, so you were sitting on the fence. There you go, and as we come in here, The Victorians turned this into a sort of palatial entry and so they put great parliamentarians down either side. They put Edmund Burke here, the Georgian thinker, the Georgian politician who helps to really come up with the idea of British conservatism. His old friend Charles James Fox just here with his big round tummy, he liked a good time. He was one of the great parliamentary performers of all time, might have been prime minister for a long, long, long, long time but But he was unfortunate enough to be up against The one and only, Pitt the Younger, William Pitt, over here, became Prime Minister at age just 24, the youngest in British history, it's never been better. He would go on to be Prime Minister, I think, for about two decades it will take, steering Britain through the French Revolutionary Wars, the first part of the Napoleonic Wars. An extraordinary politician. As you come through this room, you see the artwork on the walls to tell the story of the history of Britain. It starts, obviously, Alfred fighting Vikings in the longboats there. With the White Cliffs of Dover in the background, Englishness through Alfred forged on the battlefield, but also at sea. So Britain has a maritime power, very important. Then William Pitt's dad, William Pitt the Elder, senior, very senior politician during the Seven Years' War, French-Indian wars in North America, helps to mastermind the strategy. You would see Canada, India, the Caribbean, the American Midwest all taken into the British Empire, albeit quite briefly in some of those bits. Rich the Lionheart, they absolutely loved Rich the Lionheart in the Victorian period. There he is, looking like an absolute demigod, leaving the White Castle over, going on crusade. We come further into the room here. It's actually very near this spot in 1812. The only Prime Minister of Britain, Spencer Percival, to be assassinated was shot right here in the entrance to the House of Parliament. Walpole, the first Prime Minister, ruled... In the early 18th century, King George I, King George I became indispensable to them and forged the office of prime minister that we've still got today, making that office around 300 years old. He was the first man to live in 10 Downing Street. He was one of the great parliamentary performers. He could get Parliament to do what the king wanted. And he'd get the king to do what Parliament wanted. And really, that made the world go round in the early 18th century. Magna Carta, that's a big moment. King John up there looking very unhappy, affixing his seal to that document. Magna Carta, which helped to bring about the birth of Parliament. This statue's interesting here. In 1909, a woman who believed that women should have the vote, equal participation in the political system, she chained herself to this statue here. And when they came along to use bolt cutters to chop off the chains and free her, they actually sliced this spur off here. And now I've got to this end of the room, you can see these brass markers on the floor here, so this was the original speaker's chair, here you go, big speaker's chair, and this was the table for sort of documents on the floor here, and that reflects the fact this really this space here ...was where the first Parliament was. And the British Parliament, arguably one of the oldest continuously operating, give or take, parliaments in the world, well, that history started right here in this space. Now, this is the political crossroads of the kingdom. It's sort of the heart of things really in this building. In one direction, you have the House of Commons, the lower chamber of parliament. In the other direction, you have the House of Lords, so people can either turn right or left. And this is where journalists are allowed to mix with politicians in here. And so the British broadcasting organisations like the BBC, ITN, GB News, they are able to come in here and Film, do interviews and things like that. Like everywhere else in this building, you've got very deliberate artwork and statues. Look at that, the light shining on Gladstone there, one of the greatest 19th century prime ministers. But along the walls, you've got statues of largely kings and queens. Young Edward VI over there, looking like the teenager he was when he sadly died too young. Edward II, useless king, but you know, everyone gets a shout out. Lots and lots of other kings and queens as you go up the walls. Very striking mosaics here, the patron saints of England, of Scotland, Ireland. And Wales built into the fabric of this building is this political idea of the unity of the British and Irish Isles. And so all of those patron saints being given sort of equal prominence in this central point of the building. Strange little detail here. There's these metal grates on the windows. They're actually recycled. They were in the House of Commons. They were designed to shield women who, when it was all male members of the House of Commons, so that women could watch. But they'd be behind those grates. They wouldn't be too distracting. Their beauty would not put people off the important matters in hand. Today, if you go to that door, it takes to the public gallery. So through there is where members of the public go. People like you and me, if we want to watch what is going on in Parliament. For example, checking out the Prime Minister's questions. Over here, this is still a post office. So MPs and peers can make sure they can correspond with their constituents. We're about to come into a room now that's so spectacular, every single inch of the walls are just filled with rich history. I go crazy every time I'm in here. Look at this, it's the prince's chamber and you're gonna get a lot of 16th century in here folks. There's a lot of Tudor magnates, Tudor members of the royal family and up here we've got the world famous Armada painting. So let's take it, let's break it all down. We've got Very important people from the 16th century. We've got the Scottish kings, like James V, James IV. Don't forget, the UK royal family is descended just as much from the ancient kings of England as from the ancient kings of Scotland. And this Parliament building, this UK Parliament building, was very much intended to convey that. So we've got Mary, Queen of Scots, up there. But we've also got people like Lord Darnley, her husband. We've got Francis II, King of France. He gets a shout-out. Not sure why. But then we've got Henry VII up there. We've got little Arthur, Prince of Wales. That's Henry VIII's older brother, who died tragically before he could become king. Catherine of Aragon, his wife. Henry VIII, who married his brother's widow. And then we've got some of Henry's wives up there. Boleyn, Seymour, Cleves, Howard, Parr. Nice. They're all here. And then look, we've got these bronze friezes, these, oh, with the Field of the Cloth of Gold there, where Francis and Henry get together. Henry gets perhaps a little bit tipsy and decides to have a wrestle with King Francis. Awkward. Henry loses. We've got the escape of Mary Queen of Scots over there, now up above me this I'm afraid is the bit that I get very excited about. We've got big moments from the campaign against the Spanish Armada, the largest fleet ever to leave the European harbour is sent against English shores to topple Queen Elizabeth and bring England into the grip of the mighty Spanish empire and we see key moments there, we see the Spanish sailing in that big group. Just making landfall, the Lizard there, do you see the little English ships coming out of Plymouth? Then we see the English engaging the Spanish, they're in that classic crescent, that moon formation. The English ships with people like Howard and Drake on board, attacking them again and again. There's the English pursuing the enemy and up here I imagine, yes this is my favourite bit, this is the climax over here, that Spanish have anchored at Calais, they're hoping to meet To meet up with our army that's in modern day Belgium. And the English send in fire ships. They put lots of flammable material on some old ships, set fire to them, push them towards the Spanish, and that is that moment there. Now for the Victorians, the people who built this room, this is really one of the climactic moments, the most important moments of English and British history. And... Speaking of Victorians, look who gets a shout right here in the centre of this room. The Queen that was on the throne during the rebuilding of this, the modern Parliament building. She went to see it as she was coming down this very important walkway here into the House of Lords where she would address Parliament. Queen Victoria did not like this touch of herself. This is such a privilege. I've never been here before. This is the... This is the chamber, this is the House of Lords, this is where the peers around the lords, the bishops, come to debate and this is where the king or the queen, the sovereign, is allowed in as well, so that's the royal throne, that's where the king addresses the state opening of parliament, that's where he gives the king's speech, you can see the coat of arms there. of the UK sovereign, astonishing gold, and then we come around here to where the Speaker of the House of Lords, he sits on the wool sack. So in medieval England, wool was the super commodity. England was like the Saudi Arabia of wool in the medieval world and so a sort of wealth of the kingdom was dependent on sheep and the wool and that trade, so that's right here at the heart of the House of Lords to remind people of the importance of that trade. These famous Red benches, you immediately know you're in House of Lords because it's red here, it's green in the House of Commons. And if you lift your eyes up you see again artwork, moments from British history. You've got these wonderful statues here. Now these are cool. These are the great barons who are present for Magna Carta when they forced King John to submit to the barons. Magna Carta is seen as one of the kind of cornerstones of constitutional government where you get a king that is forced to agree to obey rules set down. by the king and the great lords of the kingdom and and what you see in this room is is sort of the Victorian spin on Magna Carta. In comes the king or the queen and sits in council with the great men nowadays the great women of the kingdom that this is kind of Magna Carta updated but I love the fact that they're there and obviously in the corner. William the Marshal the greatest knight who ever lived the absolute boss of the early 13th century without whom Frankly, the French might have conquered this country. If we come up here, I like this. There's a nice little detail here. There's an expression in Britain when you're called to the bar, when you become a barrister, you become a trial lawyer, you're called to the bar. Traditionally, that's when young lawyers were called to this bar here. They'd come here and they'd take their oath to the crown, to uphold the law and serve the crown. And that was being called to the bar. The strange thing about the House of Lords is it's traditionally, and it's still constitutionally, the senior chamber in Parliament, because this was where the royal princes, where the king, the sovereign is able to come in. This is where the greatest landlords, the magnates, would all gather, the dukes and the earls. And for most of the history of Parliament, what happened in here is what really mattered. But through the 18th and 19th centuries, the House of Commons, Even though it's the kind of junior partner there. It becomes the most important chamber because that's where the people's voice will be heard. Those are the ones with an electoral mandate. People actually vote for the representatives that go and sit in the House of Commons. But for much of history this is where the real action was. More scenes from British history here, 1688. William and Mary being invited to take the throne by Parliament. General Monk there at the end of the civil wars after the death of Cromwell saying we're going to invite Charles II back. But look at this, this is one, this is an amazing space here. This is the members lobby, this is the entrance really to the House of Commons and then the statues in here with the big beasts to come out to play. We've got some of the great prime ministers of the last 150 years, we've got Margaret Thatcher, we have got other 20th century prime ministers. I just feel a bit sorry for them, they get slightly smaller billing, well, literally smaller. That, to me, looks like Disraeli, and he's an older 19th century prime minister, he's got his books, as he was famously a novelist as well. This is fun, these are pigeon holes, so these are little, well, areas where you can leave a message for... An MP, if you're a friend of theirs, you can just quickly put a little message in here. This dates from before the era of mobile phones, cell phones and WhatsApp, I think. And all of the MPs have got a little shelf here that you can tell what party they're in because of the little dots here. And that includes Sir Keir Starmer, who at the time of recording is the UK Prime Minister. So you can hear a little message for him there. Right, we'll see you here. This is the entrance to the House of Commons now. On the way in, very interesting here, look how degraded this is. That's been left deliberately as a memorial really, so that we remember that this area here was completely gutted. It was destroyed by German firebombing in May 1941 during the Blitz, the German assault on British cities and and industrial infrastructure. Hitler was trying to break Britain before turning east to take on the Soviet Union and the House of Commons, the Commons chamber, was one of the victims of that bombing. So beyond this everything we see has been rebuilt since the Second World War. Nice detail here on this door, do you see this mark here? That's deliberate. When at the state opening of parliament an official called Black Rod comes and bangs on the door of the House of Commons to tell the people's representatives assembled in here that the sovereign and the peers are ready for them. And that is the mark from decades of banging on the door. Let's come in here. This is very special indeed. What a privilege. All of this, rebuilt since Second World War, you've got the famous green seats in which the members of Parliament, the people's representatives, sit on either side. You have the government benches on one side, you have the opposition benches on the other side, and there you have the dispatch boxes in the middle, these two boxes. On which the spokesperson for the government will stand up, so the Prime Minister, for example, will stand up there and he'll make a statement. And then if the Prime Minister's speaking, the leader of the opposition, so that's the party with the second highest number of MPs in Parliament, they will stand up. And make a reply to the Prime Minister. Just look how adversarial it is. You can look into each other's eyes as you're sparring. And behind them on both sides there, very partisan members will be yelling and supporting, cheering and throwing insults as well. I just love looking at this spot here because this is the spot from which prime ministers have made some of the most famous speeches in parliamentary history. It's from that spot that Winston Churchill promised nothing but blood, toil, tears and sweat in 1940 when he became prime minister. It's from that spot that he talked about the battle of Britain being Britain's finest hour. Men will still say this was their finest hour. But every seat in this chamber It has got some extraordinary history attached to it. It was in one of these seats just here that Leo Amery stood up in 1940 and said to the Prime Minister of his own party, Neville Chamberlain, during a debate about the disastrous Norway campaign and the Second World War, he stood up and said, in the name of God, go. And that was one of the just epic moments of parliamentary history. In the end Chamberlain gave way, Winston Churchill replaced him, a much more successful prime minister. You can see these microphones here. So originally the debates at the House of Commons they would be reported in the press. There was a big battle in fact about that in the 18th century. That battle was won and the direct speech that went on here was reported in the press. And in the 20th century inevitably there was a call for these Debates to be broadcast on radio and then television. And so that came in bit by bit. First radio, and then eventually the television cameras would follow in 1989. I'm old enough to remember when they were introduced. It was a very exciting news story. And here we are in the world of MPs and prime ministers doing TikTok dances. Okay, so we've got this table here donated by the Canadians. These dispatch boxes from New Zealanders and then little brackets like this from Northern Rhodesia. So that's now Zambia, which is part of the British Empire at the time. Let's come around the side here. It feels like you're walking on hallowed ground. I'm very lucky indeed to be doing this. This is the speaker's chair. This is where the gentleman or the lady with the often quite trying job of keeping order in this house sits, making sure that everyone's debating with the proper decorum, trying to keep people under control. Just like the House of Lords, MPs also vote in the House of Commons by walking. It's very active, our Parliament, so you walk through here. This is if you disagree with legislation, you're saying no, and you walk through this way and you vote on one of the machines. As you come around the corner here, you meet the tellers, who are really checking exactly how you're voting. And standing behind the tellers, you have the whip, the party whip. He or she is the person who's in charge of party discipline to make sure that all the political parties, all the members of them, are voting in the correct way. It's a real treat to be in this part of the palace, very unusual to get in here. This is an original cloister that dates from before the Great Fire all the way back to the 16th century. We think built during the reign of Henry VIII because there's some crests that have Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon's initials entwined on them. So it's just off Westminster Hall, a place where politicians could walk around and enjoy the air but also staying out of the rain which is often a problem in this part of the world. This structure here may have a very important history indeed we're not sure but it could well have been Oliver Cromwell's office and in there he may well have put his name to the death warrant of King Charles I. The first and only sovereign ever to be executed according to the law, one of the most important moments in English history. Before I conclude my tour I'm given special access to go underground to explore the foundations of the iconic landmark. These are the foundations of Parliament, literally look at these big cast iron pillars stretched two stories up holding up that central lobby, literally supporting our democracy in action. This was the Victorian attempt to make sure that the building a didn't disappear into the muddy sandy banks of the Thames but also could have air circulating around it so down below the building you've got these Big corridors here that attempted to keep ventilation moving in a disgusting, putrid 19th century urban environment. So down here, we're going to the boiler. Look at all these ducts, wires, pipes. These big Victorian corridors are full of these services now. Over the decades, they've added more and more services down here, heating and gas and telecommunications and everything, until you've just got a historical record of all the developments over the last 100 years or more. Here's a great example. This is a water pipe put here in 1945. Look at that, a solid piece, the date's on there. It's irrelevant now, it's no longer used, but you can't take it out because everything's just been added on the outside. So you've got live gas mains, you've got steam here, and this pipe ducks behind it. Yeah, they're definitely running out of space down here to install new services. I've come back onto the surface now, and I'll tell you what, this tour of Parliament has taught me one thing, that from a distance, it looks magnificent. It's one of the great buildings in the world, but you get up close, It's showing its age, just look at some of the damage here, there's even bits of stone falling off. So the future of Parliament is going to be one of a serious refurbishment which needs to happen if we're going to look after what is truly one of the great buildings of Britain and the world. Thank you very much for joining me on this tour, you can check out my other tours around historical sites all over the world by clicking on any one of these now. See you next time.