Englishness

It was a thoroughly English day. The weather was great by English standards – 23 degrees and light cloud, but the sun was peeping though every so often. Some friends and I were booked onto the 11:30 tour of the Houses of Parliament. This was one London landmark I had never managed to get inside. I pass it pretty much every day on my way to work and after almost 2 years the sight of the overly fussy neo-gothic monstrosity with the unnecessary Victoria Tower at one end and oddly proportioned Clock Tower (Big Ben is the bell dammit!) at the other, still makes me smile.

Like all great democracies the British Parliament takes a summer holiday - an 82 day recess according to the tabloids, aghast (as they are every year) at the fact the MPs should be able to take time off (it does give them time to clean their moats I guess).

It also means Parliament is open to visitors. For the princely sum of £11.70 you can book yourself a place with the hoards and take a tour.

Lets get the details out of the way first. It is just as fussy inside as out and the whole time I was there I was expecting to see Penelope Keith sitting on a green bench in a corridor debating 90s post Thatcher, Labour ambitions with the party Whip …and the building is small. It was much more intimate than I expected! But I am skipping ahead…

We joined the queue (there is always a queue) at the Visitor’s Entrance at Cromwell Green and waited patiently to proceed through the security checkpoint under the stern gaze or Oliver himself. Standing on his plinth with a solitary Lion, he cuts a bit of a strange figure considering the way things turned out, but I guess if there is to be a statue of the man it should be outside Parliament.

Past security and we were into New Palace Yard and looking up at the Clock Tower sparkling in the momentary sunshine above a framework of bright steel scaffolding covering the Common façade facing the Yard. An English historic monument isn’t complete unless it has a bit of scaffold on it somewhere – generally a nice prominent place that gets in the way of a good photograph.

From the bright Yard we were ushered into the dark, gloomy depths of Westminster Hall. The 11th Century Hall is vast and has been at the heart of Parliament since it was first called in the 13th Century.

We queued again to await our tour guide and were eventually joined by a bubbly and remarkably loud woman who declared that she had the honour of showing us around and to stay close so we didn’t get lost in the building which has 1000 odd rooms.

The tour proper commenced in the Norman porch adjacent to the Sovereign’s entrance under Victoria Tower and for the first part followed the route taken by the Queen when Parliament is opened.

We stopped for a while in the Robing Room, strolled through the Royal Gallery with its enormous paintings of Waterloo and Trafalgar, into the Prince’s Chamber (the anteroom to the House of Lords) and then into the House of Lords. The House of Lords is not a big space and could never seat the more than 700 peer who are entitled to be present there and has no chance with the MPs from the Commons who try to cram in for the Queen’s Speech. It is a quirky space too, with its 3 sacks of wool from all over the Commonwealth representing the wealth of the Empire sitting directly below the gilt splendour of the Sovereign’s Throne.

The tour continued out of the House of Lords, into the Peer’s Lobby, the Central Lobby - overlooked by the patron Saints of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland – the member’s Lobby and into the House of Commons.
Destroyed by a bomb during the second world war the Commons was rebuilt as a gift of the Commonwealth nations, the back of the Speaker’s Chair showing it was a gift of the people of Australia. The Commons, like the Lords is a narrow and relatively intimate space. Churchill, tasked with rebuilding the room after the war had the chance to enlarge it, but chose not to, so as to keep the atmosphere exciting and at close quarters. He also chose to leave the arched stone portal at the entrance ragged and broken from the damage cause by bombing, as a reminder to future MPs who entered.

Had we not stopped often the walk from Lords to Commons would have taken about 30 second. Not a great distance. The corridors of power in Britain are not overly grand. The building, despite its ornate finish – especially on the Lords side – has a human scale. It does not have huge impressive spaces like the US Capitol or the vast entrance of Australia’s Parliament House. It is a place for people to meet and to work. It has a comfortable, well worn feel - nothing too fancy – rather British really.

The tour finished back in Westminster Hall where it had begun and we clambered out of the medieval darkness into the English summer.

We were all a tad hungry, so on a recommendation from my parents some weeks before, headed to a restaurant in St James Park – Inn the Park. The food has a distinct organic tendency (as do the drinks) and is quite excellent. The view over the lake and park was lovely as we ate drank and chatted. After lunch we plonked ourselves down in front of a brass band, had a ice-cream and decided this was what the English summer should be like all the time.