The Palace of Westminster has stood on the north bank of the Thames for close to a thousand years, and for most of that time it has been the seat of English — later British — government. Today it houses the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and its silhouette, dominated by the Elizabeth Tower that holds Big Ben, is one of the most recognisable in the world. Almost none of what visitors see dates from before 1834: a catastrophic fire that year destroyed the medieval palace, and the Gothic Revival building standing today is largely a 19th-century reconstruction. Visitors can go inside on a guided or self-guided tour, most of which run on Saturdays year-round and on additional weekdays when Parliament is in recess.
Contents
History of the Palace of Westminster
A Royal Palace on the Thames
The Palace of Westminster began life not as a seat of Parliament but as a royal residence. According to Historic England, the site was first developed as a royal palace under King Canute in the early 11th century, with Edward the Confessor later establishing his own palace here in the mid-1000s, alongside the abbey he founded next door. William II (“Rufus”) expanded the site substantially at the end of the 11th century, adding what became Westminster Hall in 1097 — the oldest part of the palace still standing today.
For nearly 500 years afterward, Westminster functioned as the monarch’s primary London residence, hosting coronation banquets, state trials, and the earliest meetings of what would become Parliament. The Commons and Lords began sitting at Westminster as distinct assemblies during the medieval period, gradually converting a royal palace into the operational home of English governance even while monarchs still lived there. Henry VIII’s departure for Whitehall Palace in 1512, after a fire damaged the royal apartments, marked the point at which Westminster stopped being a residence and became, permanently, a parliamentary building.
The Great Fire of 1834
On the evening of 16 October 1834, the Palace of Westminster burned down. According to UK Parliament’s own historical record, the fire began when officials ordered the destruction of centuries’ worth of wooden tally sticks — an obsolete Exchequer accounting system — in the basement furnaces, and overheated flues set fire to the House of Lords chamber. The blaze spread through the night, watched by tens of thousands of Londoners along the riverbank, among them the painter J.M.W. Turner, who produced some of his most famous canvases from the scene.
Almost the entire medieval and Tudor palace was destroyed. Westminster Hall survived largely by chance, saved by firefighters who concentrated their efforts on it specifically, along with the Jewel Tower and the cloisters of St Stephen’s. The fire cleared the way for a complete architectural rebuild — and for the building most visitors recognise today.
Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin’s Gothic Revival Design
The competition to design a new Palace of Westminster specified that the replacement had to be Gothic or Elizabethan in style, a deliberate rejection of the classical architecture then associated with revolutionary France and the United States. Charles Barry won the competition in 1836 with a design that paired a strictly symmetrical, classically planned layout with Gothic surface detail — and it was his collaborator, Augustus Pugin, who supplied nearly all of that detail: the tracery, the ironwork, the encaustic tiles, the wallpaper patterns, and the interior fittings that give the building its dense, ornamented character.
Construction ran for over three decades, and neither man lived to see it finished — Pugin died in 1852, aged 40, having by his own account worked himself into a breakdown over the project; Barry died in 1860, a year before the Clock Tower (now the Elizabeth Tower) was completed. The result is widely considered the masterpiece of the Gothic Revival movement in architecture, and it fixed, for the next 150 years, what a “serious” British public building was expected to look like.
Westminster Hall: The Palace’s Medieval Survivor
Westminster Hall, completed in 1097 under William II and re-roofed in the 1390s under Richard II, is the only major part of the palace to survive the 1834 fire intact, and it remains the oldest building on the site. Its hammerbeam roof — commissioned by Richard II and built by royal carpenter Hugh Herland — is regularly cited by architectural historians as the finest surviving medieval timber roof in Northern Europe, spanning the hall’s full 20-metre width without a single supporting pillar.
The hall has hosted the trials of Sir Thomas More, Guy Fawkes, and King Charles I, and it continues to host state occasions today, including the lying-in-state of monarchs and, on more celebratory occasions, addresses to Parliament by visiting heads of state. It is the first space visitors pass through on the guided tour.
A UNESCO World Heritage Site and Working Parliament Today
The Palace of Westminster, together with Westminster Abbey and St Margaret’s Church next door, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987, recognised for its historical and architectural significance as an ensemble. The palace remains, above all, a working building: it is home to the House of Commons and House of Lords, hosts the annual State Opening of Parliament, and contains over 1,100 rooms across more than 3.2 km of corridors — a fact that makes it, in the words of UK Parliament’s own visitor materials, one of the most complex working buildings anywhere in the world. A major, multi-decade Restoration and Renewal programme is currently under way to address the building’s aging mechanical, electrical and stonework systems, meaning visitors may encounter scaffolding or partial closures in some areas.
Visiting the Palace of Westminster: Practical Information
Tour options and prices (verified from parliament.uk, last checked 1 August 2026 — prices shown are official “from” prices; concession, child and group rates are set out on UK Parliament’s own tour prices page and should be checked directly before booking, as they were not published in a format we could verify with full confidence at time of writing):
- Guided Tour (90 minutes, English only) — adult tickets from £40. Visits Westminster Hall, Central Lobby, the House of Commons Chamber and the House of Lords Chamber. Suitable for ages 5+.
- Self-guided Audio Tour — adult tickets from £31, with one child going free per full-paying adult. Available in ten languages plus a children’s version in English.
- Speaker’s House Tour (75 minutes) — adult tickets from £23. Explores the State Apartments of Speaker’s House; content is best suited to ages 16+, and there is no child ticket.
- Big Ben Tour (90 minutes, 334 steps) — adult tickets £55. Covered in full in our separate Big Ben guide; suitable for ages 11+ only.
When tours run: Guided and audio tours generally run on Saturdays throughout the year, with additional weekday availability (Tuesday–Saturday) during parliamentary recess periods — Easter, the summer recess (roughly August into September), and Christmas. Because this is a working legislative building, tours can be added, cancelled, or restricted at short notice due to parliamentary business — always check the live calendar on the official ticketing site before travelling.
Nearest station: Westminster Underground station (District, Circle and Jubilee lines) sits immediately next to the Palace, around a 2–5 minute walk to the visitor entrance. It’s a fully step-free, wheelchair-accessible station. Victoria, Charing Cross and Waterloo mainline stations are roughly a 20-minute walk away, with connecting bus routes.
How long to allow: The guided and audio tours both run up to 90 minutes; allow extra time before your slot for the airport-style security screening all visitors pass through (bags are limited to 60cm x 40cm).
Accessibility: The main visitor entrance (Cromwell Green) offers fast-track entry for Access Card holders. Disabled visitors pay standard ticket prices, but a carer or companion goes free with a paying ticket. Westminster station itself is one of the most fully step-free stations on the London Underground.
A common misconception worth clearing up: despite the name, the Palace of Westminster is not managed or owned by the Royal Household in the way Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle are. It’s the property of the Crown but administered day-to-day by the House of Commons Commission and the House of Lords, since it has functioned as a parliamentary — not royal residential — building since the 16th century.
Best time to visit: Weekday tours during a parliamentary recess (particularly the summer recess) tend to have more availability than Saturdays, when demand from both tourists and UK residents is highest.
Nearby attractions: Westminster Abbey (directly across Parliament Square), the Elizabeth Tower and Big Ben, the Churchill War Rooms, and Westminster Bridge with views back toward the London Eye.
Practical details last verified 1 August 2026 against parliament.uk. Hours, prices and tour availability change — always confirm on the official UK Parliament ticketing site before your visit.
Frequently Asked Questions
The site has been a royal palace since the early 11th century under King Canute, but almost everything visitors see today dates from after 1834, when a fire destroyed the medieval building. The current Gothic Revival palace was constructed between 1840 and the early 1870s, making the building itself around 185 years old, standing on a nearly 1,000-year-old site.
Charles Barry was the architect who won the 1836 design competition and oversaw construction of the current building, while Augustus Pugin designed almost all of its Gothic interior detail, from stonework tracery to furniture and wallpaper. Both men are credited jointly as the palace’s designers, though neither lived to see the project fully completed.
Yes — “Palace of Westminster” and “Houses of Parliament” refer to the same building; the palace physically contains both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, which is where “Houses of Parliament” comes from as a name. “Palace of Westminster” is the building’s formal, historical name; “Houses of Parliament” describes its current function.
Not as an international tourist — paid guided and audio tours are the only route in for overseas visitors. UK residents, however, can visit for free by booking a tour through their local MP, which is a separate scheme from the paid public tours and is genuinely underused by people who don’t realise it exists.
Official adult prices start from £23 for the Speaker’s House tour, £31 for the self-guided audio tour, £40 for the 90-minute guided tour, and £55 for the separate Big Ben tour. Concession and family pricing is available and should be checked on the official UK Parliament ticketing site, as it wasn’t published in a format we could independently verify at the time of writing.
The State Opening of Parliament is the ceremonial event that formally begins each new parliamentary session, during which the monarch delivers a speech, written by the government, setting out its legislative agenda for the year ahead. It takes place inside the House of Lords Chamber and involves historic ceremonial elements, including the searching of the cellars, a tradition dating back to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
Westminster station, served by the District, Circle and Jubilee lines, sits directly next to the Palace and is roughly a 2–5 minute walk to the visitor entrance. It’s also one of the most fully step-free, accessible stations on the London Underground network.
The Palace of Westminster sits within easy reach of several other Landmarks & Monuments covered on Chronicle Trails, including Big Ben, housed in the Elizabeth Tower at its northern end, and the Tower of London further along the river. For more on London’s history and landmarks, visit our England hub or browse the full Travel Guides.
Leave a Reply