THE VICTORIA TOWER, HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT.
The finest of all the public buildings of the British government in London, the Houses of Parliament, are on the bank of the Thames in Westminster, and are of modern construction. The old Parliament Houses were burnt nearly fifty years ago, and Sir Charles Barry designed the present magnificent palace, which covers nearly eight acres and cost $20,000,000. The architecture is in the Tudor style, and the grand façade stretches nine hundred and forty feet along a terrace fronting on the Thames. It is richly decorated with statues of kings and queens and heraldic devices, and has two pinnacled towers at each end and two in the centre. At the northern end one of the finest bridges across the Thames—the Westminster Bridge—is built, and here rises the Clock Tower, forty feet square and three hundred and twenty feet high, copied in great measure from a similar tower at Bruges. A splendid clock and bells are in the tower, the largest bell, which strikes the hours, weighing eight tons and the clock-dials being thirty feet in diameter. The grandest feature of this palace, however, is the Victoria Tower, at the south-western angle, eighty feet square and three hundred and forty feet high. Here is the sovereign's entrance to the House of Peers, through a magnificent archway sixty-five feet high and having inside the porch statues of the patron saints of the three kingdoms—St. George, St. Andrew, and St. Patrick—and one of Queen Victoria, between the figures of Justice and Mercy. From the centre of the palace rises a spire over the dome of the Central Hall three hundred feet high. In constructing the palace the old Westminster Hall has been retained, so that it forms a grand public entrance, leading through St. Stephen's Porch to St. Stephen's Hall, which is ninety-five feet long and fifty-six feet high, where statues have been placed of many of the great statesmen and judges of England. From this a passage leads to the Central Hall, an octagonal chamber seventy feet across and seventy-five feet high, with a beautiful groined roof. Corridors adorned with frescoes stretch north and south from this Central Hall to the House of Commons and the House of Peers. The former is sixty-two feet long, and constructed with especial attention to acoustics, but it only has seats for a little over two-thirds of the membership of the House, and the others must manage as they can. The Speaker's chair is at the north end, and the ministers sit on his right hand and the opposition on the left. Outside the House are the lobbies, where the members go on a division. The interior of the House is plain, excepting the ceiling, which is richly decorated. The House of Peers is most gorgeously ornamented, having on either side six lofty stained-glass windows with portraits of sovereigns, these windows being lighted at night from the outside. The room is ninety-one feet long, and at each end has three frescoed archways representing religious and allegorical subjects. Niches in the walls contain statues of the barons who compelled King John to sign Magna Charta. There are heraldic devices on the ceilings and walls, and the throne stands at the southern end. The "Woolsack," where sits the lord chancellor, who presides over the House, is a seat near the middle of the room, covered with crimson cloth. When the sovereign comes to the palace and enters the gateway at the Victoria Tower, she is ushered into the Norman Porch, containing statues and frescoes representing the Norman sovereigns, and then enters the Robing Room, splendidly decorated and having frescoes representing the legends of King Arthur. When the ceremony of robing is completed, she proceeds to the House of Peers through the longest room in the palace, the Victoria Gallery, one hundred and ten feet long and forty-five feet wide and high. Historical frescoes adorn the walls and the ceiling is richly gilded. This gallery leads to the Prince's Chamber, also splendidly decorated, and having two doorways opening into the House of Peers, one on each side of the throne. In this palace for six months in every year the British Parliament meets.
INTERIOR OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
HYDE PARK.
