Although first constructed in the 11th century, Westminster Hall still stands tall as an important building within the modern-day Houses of Parliament. As Dr Hannes Kleineke of our House of Commons 1461-1504 section discusses, a building of this age and importance requires a lot of repair work, and this was also the case back in the Middle Ages.
Westminster Hall, built under William II between about 1095 and 1099, is an integral part of the modern Palace of Westminster. Over the centuries the Hall has been witness to many important historical events in British history, with its purpose and uses evolving over the years.
While not normally used as a meeting place for medieval parliaments, in the Middle Ages the Hall provided the venue for three of the principal law courts of England – the courts of King’s bench, common pleas, and Chancery. These courts sat in wooden structures partitioned off the main hall, whose care was the responsibility of the undersheriff of Middlesex, an officer who in the fifteenth century was usually drawn from the ranks of the clerks of one of the benches. The works he carried out were funded from some of the fines imposed by the justices, and the undersheriff in his turn compiled short accounts detailing them.
Wear and tear was considerable in the courts. In the summer of 1459, as on an almost annual basis, the undersheriff accounted for the ‘mendynge and ioynynge togedir of the bordis of the … Kynges bench’, as well as the cleaning of the courts. New benches and tables for the justices and clerks of the courts had to be procured on a regular basis, and the cushions for the justices’ comfort were also renewed from time to time. Routine consumables included, apart from candles and ink, the matting that covered the stone floor, which had to be replaced on a quarterly basis at a not inconsiderable cost of about 2s. per term. The various cloths that covered some of the furnishings and stonework around the courts suffered both from wear and from the smoke of the candles and torches used for lighting the courts. They periodically had to be repaired, and more frequently laundered, a task which in 1466 provided a modest additional income for the cryer of the King’s bench.
On occasion, the fabric of the building itself required attention. In 1504 the stairs between the King’s bench and the court of Chancery had to be repaired; in 1605 various workmen were paid for brickwork, making windows and carrying away rubbish; while a year later exceptional expenditure was incurred for the repair of both the ‘great window’ and a further window on the south side of the Hall.
In the 1390s, Richard II ordered a complete remodelling of Westminster Hall, covering up some of the surviving Norman features in the masonry, and installing the splendid hammer-beam roof that forms one of the Hall’s most striking features to the present day. This, of course, meant that the Hall was unavailable for use when Richard’s final Parliament (not counting the aborted assembly of 1399) gathered at Westminster in September 1397. While the lords and commons might have met in their normal meeting places, a bigger venue was needed for the state trial of the earl of Arundel. To overcome this problem, a ‘longe and large house of tymbur…that wasse called an hall, keuerde with tiles and open atte bothe sidez and atte the endez’ was constructed in the courtyard between the north end of the Great Hall and Edward III’s clock tower, and it was here that the earl was tried.
According to several chronicle accounts, King Richard, himself seated on an elevated throne, had deliberately left the sides of the building open to provide a clear field for the Cheshire archers with whom he had surrounded the structure. Intended as a hardly veiled threat to anybody who should defy the royal will, the archers nearly caused an unplanned bloodbath (with the monarch caught up in the middle of it) when they wrongly assumed that a quarrel had broken out in the assembly and began to prepare to shoot. Only the King’s hurried personal intervention prevented a further escalation.
The care and work undertaken in Westminster Hall over the years, as well as the impact refurbishment can have on sitting parliaments looking for alternative accommodation are all the more relevant considering the current Restoration and Renewal (R&R) Programme and its plans for extensive work across the Palace of Westminster.
HK
Dr Kleineke presented at the recent workshop, ‘Re-thinking Westminster Hall’, as part of a wider discussion of the Hall’s history and legacy. Find out more about the workshop and those involved here. (Please note that the event has now taken place).