Victoria Tower Gardens

The Thames Embankment is a work of 19th-century civil engineering that reclaimed marshy land next to the River Thames in central London. It consists of the Victoria Embankment and Chelsea Embankment.

The Buxton Memorial Fountain is a memorial and drinking fountain in London, the United Kingdom, that commemorates the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1834, and in particular, the role of British parliamentarians in the abolition campaign.It was commissioned by Charles Buxton MP, and was dedicated to his father Thomas Fowell Buxton along with William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Henry Brougham and Stephen Lushington, all of whom were involved in the abolition. It was designed by Charles Buxton, who was himself an amateur architect, in collaboration with the neo-Gothic architect Samuel Sanders Teulon (1812–1873) in 1865. It coincided with the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which effectively ended slavery in the United States. The memorial was completed in February 1866.It was originally constructed in Parliament Square, erected at a cost of £1,200. As part of the postwar redesign of the square it was removed in 1949 and not reinstated in its present position in Victoria Tower Gardens until 1957. There were eight decorative figures of British rulers on it, but four were stolen in 1960 and four in 1971. They were replaced by fibreglass figures in 1980. By 2005 these were missing, and the fountain was no longer working. Between autumn 2006 and February 2007 restoration works were carried out. The restored fountain was unveiled on 27 March 2007 as part of the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the act to abolish the slave trade.A memorial plaque commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Anti-Slavery Society was added in 1989.

The Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst Memorial is a memorial in London to Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel, two of the foremost British suffragettes. It stands at the entrance to Victoria Tower Gardens, south of Victoria Tower at the southwest corner of the Palace of Westminster. Its main feature is a bronze statue of Emmeline Pankhurst by Arthur George Walker, unveiled in 1930. In 1958 the statue was relocated to its current site and the bronze reliefs commemorating Christabel Pankhurst were added.

The UK Holocaust Memorial is a proposed memorial and learning centre to preserve the testimony of British Holocaust survivors and concentration camp liberators and to honour the Jewish victims of the Holocaust and other victims of Nazi persecution, including Roma, LGBT, and disabled people. The government originally planned to build it in Victoria Tower Gardens, a Royal Park next to the Houses of Parliament. This proposal became contentious because of the popularity and nature of the location and because the memorial would take around a quarter of the green space in the park.In July 2021 it was announced that, following a public inquiry, planning permission was granted for the Holocaust Memorial. In November 2021 a High Court judge granted a Planning Stautory Review of this permission.In April 2022 the high court in London overturned the decision to build the memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens. Permission to appeal was also refused.

The Parliamentary Archives of the United Kingdom preserves and makes available to the public the records of the House of Lords and House of Commons back to 1497, as well as some 200 other collections of parliamentary interest. The present title was officially adopted in November 2006, as a change from the previous title, the House of Lords Record Office. Over three million records are held by the archives in the Victoria Tower of the Palace of Westminster on 5.5 miles of shelving. Some of the most important constitutional records of the United Kingdom are stored by the Archives, including the Petition of Right (1628), the Death Warrant of Charles I (1649), the Habeas Corpus Act 1679, the draft and final Bill of Rights (1689), the Slave Trade Act (1807 and 1833), the Great Reform Act (1832), and successive Representation of the People Acts. Its public search-room is open from Monday to Friday, 10:00 to 16:00, and is free to the public, although appointments to visit must be made owing to limited seating space. The archives also oversees records management for Parliament, has an active outreach programme and frequently appears on radio and TV programmes.

The Victoria Tower is a square tower at the south-west end of the Palace of Westminster in London, adjacent to Black Rod's Garden on the west and Old Palace Yard on the east. At 98.5 metres (323 ft), it is slightly taller than the Elizabeth Tower (formerly known as the Clock Tower and popularly known as 'Big Ben') at the north end of the Palace (96.3 metres (316 ft)). At the time of its construction it was the tallest square tower in the world. It was designed by Charles Barry in the Perpendicular Gothic style and was completed in 1860. It houses the Parliamentary Archives in archive conditions meeting the BS 5454 standard, on 12 floors. All 14 floors of the building were originally linked via a single wrought-iron Victorian staircase of 553 steps, of which five floors survive. The steps are made of granite quarried from Cairngall in Aberdeenshire.The main entrance at the base of the tower is the Sovereign's Entrance, through which the Monarch passes at the State Opening of Parliament. On top of the Victoria Tower is an iron flagstaff from which flies the Union Flag or, when the Sovereign is present in the Palace, the Royal Standard. The flag used to be flown only on days when either House of Parliament sat, but since January 2010 it has been flown every day.

College Green (aka Abingdon Green, formally known as Abingdon Street Gardens) is a public park in the City of Westminster in Central London. It is east of Westminster Abbey including Westminster Abbey Gardens and across a road from the gardens of the Houses of Parliament. The gardens are not enclosed and are accessible at all times. For many months of 2019, during the Brexit deadlock, it exclusively hosted TV broadcasts and radio and media interviews. The park is a common place for television reporters to interview Members of Parliament. Henry Moore's bronze sculpture Knife Edge Two Piece 1962–65 is in the gardens.The gardens are a roof to a two-storey underground car park constructed from 1963 to 1964. The site was originally a tidally flooded bank of the River Thames separated from the College Garden of Westminster Abbey by a medieval wall with a watergate. Its name refers to the collegiate church of Westminster Abbey, which includes Westminster School.

The Parliamentary Estate is the land and buildings used by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The most notable part of the Parliamentary Estate is the Palace of Westminster, where the chambers of both houses of Parliament (the Commons and the Lords) are located. The oldest part of the Palace of Westminster is Westminster Hall, the historic core of the building; the present-day Palace of Westminster was built after a major fire in 1834 destroyed all of the palace except for Westminster Hall, the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft, the Cloisters and Chapter House of St Stephen's, and the Jewel Tower. The palace includes two courtyards, the Old Palace Yard and New Palace Yard; the former dates to the time of Edward the Confessor, while the latter was built in 1097 on the orders of William II (Rufus).The northern part of the Parliamentary Estate lies north of Bridge Street. It includes Canon Row; Parliament Street; Derby Gate (formerly the Whitehall Club); houses office space for parliamentary staff and the Commons Library); Norman Shaw North and Norman Shaw South (two 1890s buildings, both containing office space for members of Parliament (MPs) and their staff); Portcullis House (an office building for MPs and staff, opened February 2001); and Richmond House and Richmond Terrace (which became part of the Parliamentary Estate in January 2018).

The House of Lords Library is the library and information resource of the House of Lords, the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It provides Members of the House and their staff with books, Parliamentary material and reference and research services.

The Woolsack is the seat of the Lord Speaker in the House of Lords, the Upper House of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Before 2006, it was the seat of the Lord Chancellor.

The House of Lords, formally The Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster located in London, England.The House of Lords scrutinises bills that have been approved by the House of Commons. It regularly reviews and amends bills from the Commons. While it is unable to prevent bills passing into law, except in certain limited circumstances, it can delay bills and force the Commons to reconsider their decisions. In this capacity, the House of Lords acts as a check on the more powerful House of Commons that is independent of the electoral process. While members of the Lords may also take on roles as government ministers, high-ranking officials such as cabinet ministers are usually drawn from the Commons. The House of Lords does not control the term of the prime minister or of the government. Only the lower house may force the prime minister to resign or call elections.While the House of Commons has a defined number of members, the number of members in the House of Lords is not fixed. Currently, it has 781 sitting members. The House of Lords is the only upper house of any bicameral parliament in the world to be larger than its lower house, and is the second-largest legislative chamber in the world behind the Chinese National People's Congress. The Queen's Speech is delivered in the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament. In addition to its role as the upper house, until the establishment of the Supreme Court in 2009, the House of Lords, through the Law Lords, acted as the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom judicial system. The House also has a Church of England role, in that Church Measures must be tabled within the House by the Lords Spiritual.

The White Chamber was part of the medieval Palace of Westminster. Originally a dining hall, and then the location for the Court of Requests, it was the meeting place of the House of Lords from 1801 until it was gutted by fire in 1834. Re-roofed, it was the temporary home of the House of Commons until 1851, when it was pulled down for the building of the new Palace of Westminster. Also known as the Lesser Hall, the White Hall or the Greater White Chamber, it measured 120 by 34 feet (37 m × 10 m). It was situated to the south of the somewhat larger Westminster Hall (the Great Hall), with the same north–south alignment. It was built c. 1167 as a dining hall, and then remodelled by Henry III, adjacent to his new King's Chamber to the east, which was perpendicular to the south end of the White Chamber. The King's Chamber was originally a state bedchamber, and later used for state ceremonies; due to its lavish painted decoration, it became known as the Painted Chamber. To the south of the east end of the King's Chamber was the Queen's Chamber, an even smaller chamber for his queen, Eleanor of Provence. (The Queen's Chamber was also sometimes known as the White Chamber; to avoid confusion with the other White Chamber, the Lesser Hall might be distinguished as the Great White Chamber or the White Hall.) Like the King's Chamber and the Queen's Chamber, the White Chamber was on the upper storey of the building, with cellars for the services below. The White Chamber was repaired after a fire in 1298 which destroyed the old St Stephen's Chapel. The custom grew for Parliament to be convened by the King in the Painted Chamber, and then from c.1259 the Lords retired to the Queen's Chamber and the Commons elsewhere (sometimes in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey; later to the rebuilt St Stephen's Chapel, which ran east–west to the north end of the White Chamber). Guy Fawkes was caught in the cellars below the Queen's Chamber (formerly the Royal kitchens) in 1605. The White Chamber was the home of the Court of Requests (also known as the Court of Conscience) until 1801. The Court of Requests was associated with the Privy Council, and heard complaints and petitions to the King. The Court became known as the "Court of White Hall". The House of Lords moved from the Queen's Chamber to the White Hall in 1801, as it needed more space to accommodate Irish peers after the Act of Union with Ireland. To make room, the Court of Requests moved to the Painted Chamber. When used as the House of Lords, the King's throne was located on a dais at the south end of the White Hall, with the Lord Chancellor's woolsack and a table in front for the house's clerks and mace, surrounded by benches on three sides - for the government, the opposition, and the non-partisan crossbenches. Tapestries were hung from the walls, showing the defeat of the Spanish Armada. It was lit by high, semicircular windows. The vacated Queen's Chamber, and the Prince's Chamber, were pulled down by Sir John Soane in 1823 to create a new Royal Gallery and Staircase. The White Chamber survived, but was gutted in the devastating fire in 1834. The fire started in the cellar below the White Chamber, where piles of unwanted tally sticks were being destroyed in two furnaces used to warm the chamber above. Many of the other principal rooms of the palace were severely damaged, including the Painted Chamber and St Stephen's Chapel. The Great Hall was largely unscathed. The Painted Chamber and White Chamber were re-roofed so the House of Lords could move temporarily to the former, and the Commons to the latter. The ruins of the White Chamber were demolished in September 1851 to make way for the building of the new Palace of Westminster.