Westminster

St. Margaret's.

On the north side of the Abbey, close beside it, is the parish church of St. Margaret. It was founded in or soon after the time of the Confessor, but the present building is Per pendicular, of greater beauty within than without. St. Margaret's is officially the church of the House of Commons.

Westminster Palace : Houses of Parliament.

A royal palace existed at Westminster under Canute, but the building spoken of by Fitzstephen as an "incomparable structure furnished with a breastwork and a bastion" is supposed to have been founded by Edward the Confessor and enlarged by William I. The Hall, called Westminster Hall, was built by William Rufus and altered by Richard II. In 1512 the palace suffered greatly from fire, and thereafter ceased to be used as a royal residence. St. Stephen's chapel, originally built by King Stephen, was used from 1547 for the meetings of the House of Commons, which had been held previously in the chapter house of the Abbey; the Lords used another apartment of the palace.

A fire in 1834 destroyed the whole palace save the historic hall and the present buildings were erected on the site 184o-67. The south-western Victoria Tower is 34o feet high. The Clock Tower 329 feet high contains the clock called Big Ben after Sir Benjamin Hall, First Commissioner of Works at the time when the clock was erected. Of the modern rooms, the House of Lords is an ornate chamber, 97 ft. in length; that of the Commons is 7o ft. long.

Westminster Hall.

The original Hall was finished in 1o99, during which year it is recorded that King William Rufus held his first court in the Hall. Little remains of Rufus's Hall beyond its walls which have been encased with modern linings. The unsur passed open timber roof was erected by King Richard II. in when Richard appointed John Gedeney to supervise the work of repair to the Hall, with power to engage any necessary- masons, carpenters and labourers. Hugh Herland, a master carpenter in the service of the king, was appointed controller to Gedeney and it is probably to Hugh Herland that we owe the creation of the magnificent roof. The span of the roof is 67 ft. 6 in. without

any intermediate supports, and its construction presented a prob lem the solving of which had not previously been attempted. The roof was designed with an upper triangulated framed structure consisting of the main collar beam, principal rafters, and queen posts, with a crown post centrally supporting the heavy ridge piece. This upper triangular framed structure was supported on two cantilever structures embodying the lower principal rafter, the hammer post, the hammer beam, the wall post and the curved strut between wall post and hammer beam, the whole roof being tied together by a great curved brace or arch springing from the corbel at the foot of the wall post passing the hammer beam, the hammer post with its crown at the centre of the main collar beam.

Evidence is available of repairs being carried out to the struc ture and the roof on many occasions, but the most drastic restora tion work was undertaken in recent years and was not completed until 1922. This restoration became an urgent necessity owing to the ravages of the "Death-watch beetle" (the Xestobium Tos sellatum) whose operations during many years had caused the roof to become entirely unsafe. Investigation undertaken by His Majesty's Office of Works revealed an actual danger of a collapse of a portion of the roof. The ends of many of the principal rafters, the purlins and some of the main collar beams were found to be hollowed out to a thin shell by the attacks of the beetle.

In the restoration various expedients were tried to destroy the beetle and its eggs, the most satisfactory result being obtained by spraying the affected timbers after they had been thoroughly cleaned with a solution of ortho-para-dichlor-benzene. A system of steel reinforcement was adopted for supporting the roof structure, and this was so placed as to be invisible.

Westminster Hall was the seat of the chief law court of Eng land for centuries and it witnessed the trials of, among others, Wallace, Richard II., Sir Thomas More, Thomas Campion, Charles I., Titus Oates, Warren Hastings and Queen Caroline. It is thus one of the chief centres of English history.