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WESTMINSTER HALL’S LOST STUART DOOR PASSAGE REDISCOVERED

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2022

Elizabeth Hallam Smith Open the ORCID record for Elizabeth Hallam Smith [Opens in a new window]  and
John Crook
Elizabeth Hallam Smith
Affiliation:
Houses of Parliament, Westminster, London SW1A 0AA, UK. E-mail: hallamsmithe@parliament.uk
John Crook
Affiliation:
Hillside, Brede TN31 6EJ, UK. Email: john@john-crook.com
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Abstract

In 2018 unpublished archaeological evidence was discovered recording a doorway and passageway concealed inside the Romanesque wall of Westminster Hall, near the south-east corner. Although commemorated by a bronze plaque in situ, their existence had largely been forgotten. Further investigations revealed an access panel in the 1951 cloakroom fittings in adjoining St Stephen’s cloister: this was located, and the space accessed, seemingly for the first time since c 1952. The many features of interest found within included the doorcase and soffits of a great doorway and iron pintles for the doors; Purbeck flagstones on the floor; complex masonry and plaster from several different eras; graffiti by masons from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; a still-functional Osram lightbulb dating from the early 1950s; and wooden joists supporting the masonry of the ceiling. Isotope dating of the timbers produced a date of 1659, and works accounts showed that the doorway and passageway were created in 1660–1, to form a ceremonial route for the coronation of Charles ii. Further archaeological and historical investigations have enabled the authors to establish a full chronology for the changing fabric and uses of the doorway and passageway from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century, and to trace the masons who walled in the space in 1851. They have also established why the brass plaque in Westminster Hall marking the space erroneously ascribes it with Tudor origins: that ‘fake history’ was created by an over-enthusiastic late-nineteenth century Clerk of the House of Commons.

Keywords

Westminster HallPalace of WestminsterKing Charles II(r. 1660–85)Sir Charles Barry (1795–1860)Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (1811–78)
Type
Research paper
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 102 , September 2022 , pp. 389 - 417
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Society of Antiquaries of London

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