Saint Stephen's chapel lay over the Chapel of Saint Mary Undercroft. The latter is a relic of the Norman Palace of Westminster incorporated by Sir Charles Barry into the present Houses of Parliament beneath Saint Stephen's Hall. Who exactly built what and when in the name of Saint Stephen is a subject of rather heated debate by those who have opinions justified by thorough knowledge of the subject. Certainly a chapel was built in the 11th century by Edward the Confessor's grandson Stephen (about 1097 - 1154) and dedicated to his namesake saint but whether it is of that chapel that the Undercroft is a relic or of the later building is not certain. A suggestion is that what happened next was triggered by the building of Sainte Chapelle in Paris by Louis IX of France. Henry III took part in the consecration ceremony there in 1245, bearing one of the relics into the church. A proposition is that he and his son Edward I (1239-1307) felt they had to go one better. Monarchic machismo required bigger and better buildings - preferably to the glory of God, of course. Henry set about the rebuilding of the Confessor's Abbey; Edward commissioned the rebuilding of Stephen's chapel. Between them that updated the two major churches on the site from Norman to Gothic style. Because Edward's chapel had to be very, very special, its proportions were almost distorted. It was ninety feet long, twenty-eight feet wide and one hundred feet high. This may have been the building which set the style of English Perpendicular Gothic. A clerestory was added to gain that height with no justification for the lighting of the interior as may be required in those churches with a width encompassing a nave and aisles. The intention from the outset was that it should be a jewel in what had become the major residence of the monarch in London, which had become the major city of the kingdom. Edward I's requirements were certainly not completely built and indeed not properly roofed in his life-time. The efforts of his son, Edward II (1284-1327), were slight and mainly confined to completing the roof. But then, in the reign of Edward III (1312-77), with sumptuous, exquisite and probably riotous decoration the jewel was complete in 1365. At that time the king and his immediate family had access to the royal pew at an upper level in the Chapel from the Painted Chamber (a major element of the private accommodation) through a gallery on the outside of the east wall of the White Hall. The clergy and the rest of the congregation used a door at floor level. Apart from completing the structure and decoration Edward also changed the status of the chapel. In 1368 he made it a collegiate chapel. This meant that a body of men were expected, in a defined hierarchy, to be involved with the church in specified duties and the layout of the interior was adapted to accommodate them. At the level of the second bay from the west end there was a screen with an organ loft above. This divided off an ante-chapel where those who were not members of the college could congregate and, in the eastern section, pews were ranged along the walls for the members of the college. Finally, the Dean and other senior officers of the college had seating with their backs to the screen. This form of chapel was copied in the colleges which had been and were being created in Oxford and Cambridge. It was this building with this layout that, in 1547, was presented to the Commons for their meetings by Edward VI (1537-53) or, more accurately in practical terms, by the Lord Protector, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset (1506-52). Prior to this gift they had had no place specifically for their occasional get-togethers.

O/S Co-ords:3024.7950
Source(s):

Parliament House - The Chambers of the House of Commons

This building was the meeting place of the Commons from this date until it was burnt down in 1834. Thus it became the House of Commons. The perimeter of Saint Stephen's Hall in the present Houses of Parliament is almost exactly that of the chapel. The Commons element of Parliament had, for its occasional private meetings prior to this date, gathered in various places about the Abbey (e.g., the Chapter House and the Refectory), the Palace (e.g., the Star Chamber) and the City of London. Those private meetings are distinct from the even rarer occasions when the Commons were present for a meeting of Parliament assembled with the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the monarch. Parliament, defined as the meeting of all four of those elements, happened where the monarch summoned them but, by the 16th century, Parliament met most often in the chamber used by the Lords and called the Parliament Chamber. Parliament still meets in the chamber used by the Lords.
The chapel that was presented to them in 1547 by Edward VI (1537-53) had been a collegiate chapel of rather extreme dimensions: ninety feet long, twenty-eight feet wide and one hundred feet high. It is thought that the floor-plan typical of such an establishment is reflected in the present House of Commons in several ways. College chapels are divided into an ante-chapel and main chapel by a screen with an organ loft above it. In this case it is thought that the screen was at the level of the second bay from the western end. The ante-chapel became the members' lobby. When a division was called, the members who were for the motion being debated filed out of the chamber into the lobby past the teller who recorded their 'Aye' vote.. In the main chapel there would have been bench seating along the side walls from the screen to the altar steps and seating for the senior officers of the college with their backs to the screen. The main chapel area, from the screen to the east window, that the Commons used for the next three hundred years was therefore no more than sixty feet long and not thirty feet wide. By the end of that 300 years, for major events, some six hundred Commoners might be trying to fit into that space. An engraving of 1624 shows that the front bench has ten men jammed onto it between the bar and the Speakers chair, which appears to be on the altar step. A medallion of 1651 shows six men in the same rows more comfortably seated. The engraving shows five raked rows of benches on each side, the medallion shows four rows. From some records it appears that the rear rows were accessed by climbing a ladder. In each picture there are a substantial number more members seated in raked tiers athwart the chamber beside and behind the Speaker's chair. Both pictures show the windows with plain diamonds of glass and any paintings or other decorations covered following the removal of all 'Popish' emblems as required by the puritans in that century. The coverings of the walls in the later medallion are tapestries. In these settings the private meetings of the Commons, i.e., the meetings from which they barred the Lords and the monarch, became more and more significant in determining the legislation passed by Parliament. Between 1692 and 1707 Sir Christopher Wren, who had no regard for gothic architecture but did not wilfully destroy it, adapted the space to be less like a chapel and more like a debating chamber. The roof was lowered and a ceiling at a height of some thirty feet allowed use of the upper space as another floor which at least latterly was accommodation for the housekeeper. New windows in the style of the time replaced the gothic tracery and the wall paintings covered in panelling rather than tapestries. But, the confronting raked rows of benches rounding behind the raised Speaker's chair and the seating on either side of the entry were maintained. The major addition to the accommodation was the building of galleries along the side walls. The assemblies grew in numbers for two main reasons: the increase in the franchise and the population represented; and the inclusion of Scottish and Irish members, the first following the 1707 Act of Union and the latter the dissolution of the Irish Parliament in 1801. At the start of the 19th century, in a general effort to refurbish the whole Palace of Westminster, a detailed survey of the buildings was made and the Surveyor General, James Wyatt (1746-1813), was instructed to alter the chamber to make room for the Irish members. In the view of some, Wyatt was a vandal. He destroyed the decorations which had been covered up, in good order, by Wren even where there was no structural alteration. However the paintings were, largely, sketched before their destruction. The artist commissioned to make the drawings was required by Wyatt to confine himself to working when the demolition men were not so he had to get in very early. From his sketches Professor Ernest Tristram created copies of the paintings which are on the stairs from the Principal floor of Barry's buildings to the Terrace. The chamber resulting from Wyatt's efforts was destroyed by the fire of 16/10/1834.

O/S Co-ords:3024.7950
Source(s):

Parliament House - The Chambers of the House of Commons