Having done a post about Big Ben and the Clock Tower, I thought I would redress the balance with a post about the tower at the other end (the Lords’ end) of the Palace.
Victoria Tower dominates the southern end of the Palace of Westminster. At ground level, there is the Sovereign’s Entrance, where the Queen arrives for State Opening. The Tower itself houses the Parliamentary Archives, with about 3 million records. The material encompasses the official records of both Houses, including the original vellum copies of Acts of Parliament. They also include other material relating to Parliament, such as the papers of the Lord Great Chamberlain, and the private papers of some politicians, such as Lloyd George, Bonar Law, and Beaverbrook.
In response to my post on Big Ben, Adrian Kidney mentioned that the people responsible for maintaining the clock were ‘Great fun chaps, all of them’. The staff who work in the Palace tend to be dedicated and wonderful people. That certainly applies to those who work in the Archives. They are extremely keen and helpful. The Archives are open to the public and anyone interested in researching particular records should contact them. Further details can be found here.
Thanks, Lord Norton!
I have seen the Acts Room. It’s an amazing sight to behold. I’d love to work there someday.
I also love the various ‘endorsements’ which run on all Bills when going through the legislative ping pong between the Houses, all in Norman French. It’s a small detail but I love it – it’s another remind of how ancient Parliament is, and how multicultural our origins are.
I like how the two towers* play with temporal themes: the Clock Tower registers the never-ending passage of time and shouts it to the world (visually and audibly), while the Victoria Tower hides the tangible records of history, a reassuring symbol of permanence and continuity. Even architecturally, they express these qualities, and are opposites of each other in many ways. Between them they share night and day (in terms of how they indicate parliamentary business through the Ayrton light and the Union Flag respectively), and they have contrasting symbolic roles—the former providing instant international recognisability in a restless modern age, and the latter being a portal to the past through its archives and by housing the entrance used by the Queen for the traditional State Opening, all under the nation’s time-honoured symbols.
Over-analysing? Perhaps. I tend to do that. But the Palace of Westminster surely qualifies as one of the buildings that lend themselves to such interpretations…
*No Lord of the Rings reference intended.
PS: One of the tags for this entry is wrong, namely “Lord Beaversbrook”.