In the latest instalment of London Landmarks, Jess Jones-Berney is shown round the Houses of Parliament.
Value: 9
Queues: 6
Shop: 7
Family-friendly: 9
Enjoyment: 9
Total: 40/50
Getting into the Houses of Parliament is no small feat. First, you've got to badger your local MP for an invite, then on arrival you're grilled by security, subjected to X-ray and given a photo ID. Be warned, wearing a hat is a crime considered on a par with treason here. And don't even think about sitting in the House of Lords...
With a lot to get round, speed is of the essence, as our tour guide Sarah, high on the kind of dynamic enthusiasm that history teachers should down by the keg load, barks “Let's go!” And we're off, navigating embellished hallways lined with busts of prime ministers, smelling suspiciously like fruitcake. Nothing here is too lofty for us commoners. We walk Queen Lizzy’s route for the opening of state parliament, taking in the throne on which she's blingified with one kilo worth of crowning jewels, alongside a portrait of Queen Vic where artistic liberties have clearly been taken in her favour.
It's like every artefact we encounter strives to outdo the last, from one of the original surviving versions of the Magna Carta to a gold statue of Good Queen Bess. In the Princes Chamber I'm rekindled with my Year 6 Tudor obsession, as a rotund Henry VIII is flanked by his many women, dramatising his “younger model fixation” that revolutionised the Church of England. And almost a century later, in the vaults beneath our feet, Guy Fawkes made the ultimate gunpowder blunder. We're told that even nowadays the cellar is ceremoniously searched by an officer and ten other men carrying lanterns. It’s comforting to hear how security has really upped its game over the years.
Everything's a sea of red as we enter the Lords' chillax area, solely because the colour’s so darn expensive to produce. But lavishness aside, the chairs here look like serious backache and apparently their bar is cheaper than most student unions. The walls here are decked with massive paintings of Nelson dying at Trafalgar and Wellington at Waterloo – it's a pretty surreal backdrop for a speech Sarkozy delivered on Anglo-French brotherhood several years back.
Sadly, all this opulence ends as we move into the House of Commons, where 600 MPs are forced to get cosy in little more than 400 seats. At voting time a bell sounds all over Parliament, including nearby pubs, giving these guys a meagre eight minutes to get their asses in toe. It’s all such a familiar setting, and I can’t help recalling Tony Blair’s purple powder debacle, Robin Cook’s resignation speech and Brown quaking in his boots as Cameron shred him to pieces in here last year.
Walking through St. Stephen's Hall (where debates on slavery and American independence took place above the eleventh century crypt below) and past a five-legged dog, we finish up in Westminster Hall. The only spot on the entire grounds to have withstood flooding, bombing and fire over the years, it’s a really impressive space that’s born witness to grand medieval banquets, the trials of Guy Fawkes and Charles I, Henry VIII's games of real tennis, and William Wallace's elaborately brutal execution outside in 1305.
Initially I was a bit dubious about getting bored on this tour, but with all the incredible sights and stories to enthuse over, it’s actually a pretty awesome experience. Definitely worth the entry effort.
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