# Palace of Westminster audio guide, five stops, free.

A hall of 1097 under an oak roof of 1393, wrapped in a Victorian palace of more than 1,100 rooms and 100 staircases. Two stops play from the pavement and three follow Parliament's own tour inside; for everything between them, point your phone and ask Chiaro.

Made by Chiaro. Not affiliated with Palace of Westminster. Page: https://chiaro.ai/landmarks/palace-of-westminster/

Two of the stops in this Palace of Westminster audio guide need nothing but a pavement, and the other three go inside with Parliament's own tour. Start on Westminster Bridge, on the upstream side at the Westminster end, looking south-west across the Thames at the whole river front. Then walk off the bridge and south along St Margaret Street to Old Palace Yard, for Richard the Lionheart and the Victoria Tower, and come back north to Cromwell Green, where visitors go in. Inside, the tour reaches the Lords end of the building before the Commons end, so play the House of Lords first, then the Commons Chamber, and keep Westminster Hall, beside the Cromwell Green door, for the way out. Allow ten minutes for the recordings and a walk of some five hundred metres outside; Parliament says to allow 90 minutes for the tour itself. Use it as a self-guided warm-up before your ticket time and as a replay on the way home.

Everything practical here, from the tour days to the ban on cameras beyond Westminster Hall and St Stephen's Hall, comes from UK Parliament's visitor pages and its official ticketing site as they stood on 1 October 2026; we keep the source line for each claim and re-read it, so a change there gets noticed. Dates and stories are matched against a second published account. Because Parliament is a working building, a tour can be called off or rerouted at short notice, and the staff at Cromwell Green outrank anything written here: if they say otherwise, believe them and drop us a line.

## The stops

### 1. The river front and the Elizabeth Tower, from Westminster Bridge

Charles Barry (1795–1860), architect of the new palace, with Augustus Pugin (1812–1852), who designed the Elizabeth Tower · River front begun 1839, foundation stone 27 April 1840; Clock Tower completed 1859; renamed the Elizabeth Tower in 2012 · Anston magnesian limestone, later partly replaced with Clipsham stone; the Thames front 266 metres long, the Elizabeth Tower 96 metres tall on a base 12 metres square · Outside, on Westminster Bridge: the upstream (south) pavement at the Westminster end, looking south-west across the Thames at the whole river front

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/palace-of-westminster/en/river-front-from-westminster-bridge.mp3?v=1131458 (141 s)

Look for:
- The two towers at opposite ends: the slim Elizabeth Tower on your right at the north end, and the massive square Victoria Tower far off to the left at the south end, the taller of the two by 2.2 metres.
- The Latin line under the dial facing you, DOMINE SALVAM FAC REGINAM NOSTRAM VICTORIAM PRIMAM, and the Prussian blue of the dial and hands, brought back in the 2017 to 2021 restoration.
- The paint on the bridge under your feet: green, the Commons colour, because the Commons end of the palace is this end.
- The bays of the river front repeating almost unchanged from end to end, which is what Pugin meant by Tudor details on a classic body.

Stand at the parapet on the upstream side and let your eye run the whole length of the building across the water, from the clock tower almost beside you on the right to the great square tower at the far end on the left. That front is 266 metres long, and it repeats the same bays, pinnacles and windows from one end to the other, almost perfectly symmetrical. Augustus Pugin, who drew nearly every Gothic detail on it, disliked exactly that. His verdict: all Grecian, sir; Tudor details on a classic body.

The man he was complaining about, Charles Barry, was born in 1795 in Bridge Street, the road at the Westminster end of this bridge, opposite the spot where his clock tower now stands. When the old palace burned on the sixteenth of October 1834, the crowds were so thick that they blocked this bridge, and people hired any boat they could find to watch from the river. John Constable sketched the fire from a hansom cab up here, and Turner went on to paint it twice. The cause was pure bureaucracy: two cart-loads of obsolete Exchequer tally sticks, notched pieces of wood that had once been the government's accounts, fed into the two furnaces under the House of Lords.

Ninety-seven architects entered the competition to replace it. Entry number sixty-four, marked with a portcullis, was Barry's, and the drawings were finished for him by Pugin, then twenty-three. Work on this river front began on the first of January 1839. Barry had estimated six years and about seven hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds. It took around three decades and about two and a half million.

Now the tower on your right. It was Pugin's last design before his breakdown and his death in 1852, at forty. I never worked so hard in my life for Mr Barry, he wrote, and it is beautiful. It is ninety-six metres tall and has been the Elizabeth Tower since 2012; Big Ben is strictly the great bell inside, 13.7 tonnes, said to be named after the tall Sir Benjamin Hall, who oversaw its installation. Look under the dial facing you for a line of Latin: Domine salvam fac Reginam nostram Victoriam primam. O Lord, keep safe our Queen Victoria the First. The blue of the dial and hands is the original Prussian blue, brought back in the restoration that finished in 2021, and the clock is still regulated with a small stack of old pennies on its pendulum. One coin makes four-tenths of a second a day.

Last, look down at the bridge itself. It is painted green, the colour of the Commons benches, because the Commons end of the palace is this end. Lambeth Bridge, beyond the far tower, is red, for the Lords.

### 2. Old Palace Yard: Richard the Lionheart and the Lords' west front

Carlo Marochetti (1805–1867), sculptor of the statue; the west front and the Victoria Tower by Charles Barry (1795–1860) and Augustus Pugin (1812–1852) · Statue modelled 1851, cast in bronze 1856, installed 26 October 1860, pedestal reliefs 1866–67; Victoria Tower 1843–1860 · Bronze on a Cornish granite pedestal, 9 metres high including the pedestal; the Victoria Tower 98.5 metres to the base of its flagstaff · Outside, in the public western part of Old Palace Yard on the Westminster Abbey side of St Margaret Street, looking east at the statue and the House of Lords' west front, with the Victoria Tower to your right

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/palace-of-westminster/en/old-palace-yard-richard-i.mp3?v=1017355 (127 s)

Look for:
- The bronze relief on the pedestal side facing you: Richard on his deathbed pardoning the archer who shot him, the only one of the two reliefs you can see from the street.
- The sword, bent by a bomb in September 1940 and replaced in 1947, and the damage the blast left on the pedestal.
- The sheer square bulk of the Victoria Tower to your right, at 98.5 metres the tallest part of the palace, built as a fireproof store for Parliament's records.
- The great arch at the foot of the Victoria Tower: the Sovereign's Entrance, fifteen metres high.

Walk back off the bridge, past the visitor entrance and south along the front of the palace, and you come out into this open, paved yard, with Westminster Abbey behind you and the House of Lords in front. Stand on the public side and look east at the horseman.

He is Richard the First, the Lionheart. Carlo Marochetti first showed him in clay outside the Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the horse's tail fell off shortly after the exhibition opened. Cast in bronze in 1856, he then wandered, because nobody could agree on a site, and Charles Barry, the palace's architect, fought hard against this yard, which he called too cramped and irregular. Barry died in May 1860, and that October Richard went up on his pedestal here.

Look at the sword. On the twenty-sixth of September 1940 a German bomb burst a few metres away, reportedly lifted the whole statue off the ground, and bent the blade. The Canadian High Commissioner, Vincent Massey, wanted it left bent, as a sign of the strength of democracy, which will bend but not break. It was replaced in 1947, but the pedestal still carries damage from the blast. The bronze scene on the side facing you is Richard on his deathbed, pardoning the archer who shot him; the battle scene is on the far side, where nobody on the street can see it.

This yard was also a place of execution. Sir Walter Raleigh died here, and so did Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators, within sight of the Parliament they had tried to blow up. Fawkes had been found on the evening of the fourth of November 1605 guarding thirty-six barrels of gunpowder in the undercroft beneath the House of Lords, the day before the State Opening.

Now turn to your right. The Victoria Tower, ninety-eight and a half metres, is the tallest part of the palace, and it was built as a fireproof store for records after the fire of 1834 destroyed almost all of the Commons' papers. It still holds the master copies of Acts of Parliament since 1497, the original Bill of Rights, and the death warrant of Charles the First. The great arch at its foot is the Sovereign's Entrance, fifteen metres high. When its flagstaff is up, the flag tells you who is in: the Royal Standard for the monarch, otherwise the Union Flag.

On your way back north to join the tour, look for Oliver Cromwell, standing outside Westminster Hall with a sword and a Bible. Directly across the road, set into the wall of Saint Margaret's Church, a bust of Charles the First looks straight back at him.

### 3. The House of Lords Chamber and the Throne

Charles Barry (1795–1860) and Augustus Pugin (1812–1852); frescoes by William Dyce, Daniel Maclise, Charles West Cope and John Callcott Horsley · Completed April 1847; frescoes from 1846 · Carved oak, gilding, red leather benches and six allegorical frescoes, in a chamber 13.7 by 24.4 metres · Inside, principal floor, the southern part of the palace between the Royal Gallery and the Central Lobby; the Throne is at the south end

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/palace-of-westminster/en/lords-chamber.mp3?v=977858 (122 s)

Look for:
- The gilded Canopy and Throne at the south end, used by the sovereign only at the State Opening.
- The Woolsack in front of the Throne, an armless red cushion refilled in 1938 with wool from the British Isles and fifteen Commonwealth countries.
- The red of the benches, the Lords' colour, matched outside by Lambeth Bridge at this end of the palace.
- The paintings high in the arches, begun in 1846, on religion, chivalry and law.

Look to the south end first, at the gold. That is the Canopy and Throne, and the sovereign sits there only for the State Opening of Parliament. Peers' sons have the right to sit on its steps. Everything else in here is red, the Lords' colour, the same red as Lambeth Bridge outside at this end of the building.

This chamber was finished in April 1847, five years before the Commons had a new home of their own. It is also the target the Gunpowder Plot was aimed at, though not in this form: the House of Lords Guy Fawkes meant to destroy stood in the old palace, and when that palace burned in 1834, the fire began in the furnaces directly under the Lords' floor.

In front of the Throne is a big red cushion with no back and no arms: the Woolsack. In the fourteenth century Edward the Third decided his Lord Chancellor should sit on a bale of wool, to show where England's wealth came from. In 1938 it turned out to be stuffed with horsehair, and it was refilled with wool from the British Isles and fifteen Commonwealth countries. When the House is sitting, the mace lies across the back of it. When the monarch is present, it does not.

The benches tell you who is who. The bishops sit on the side to the Lord Speaker's right. Peers who belong to no party sit on the benches across the middle, facing the Woolsack, which is why they are called crossbenchers. At the far end from the Throne is the Bar of the House, and on State Opening day the Commons crowd in behind it and may not come a step further.

Look up at the arches above the galleries. The paintings there, on religion, chivalry and law, were begun in 1846 by the leading painters of the day: William Dyce's Baptism of Ethelbert, and Daniel Maclise's Justice and Chivalry among them.

Then look straight along the length of the building. Barry laid the two chambers on one long spine, so that when every door between them is open, someone standing under the great chandelier in the Central Lobby, halfway along, can see this Throne in one direction and the Speaker's Chair of the Commons in the other. Between this chamber and the Commons lies that lobby, an octagon eighteen metres across, with mosaics of Saint George, Saint Andrew, Saint David and Saint Patrick over its doors. Constituents come there to catch their Members, which is where the word lobbying comes from. And when the Commons were bombed out in the war, it was this chamber they borrowed, while the Lords moved into the Robing Room.

### 4. The House of Commons Chamber, at the despatch box

Giles Gilbert Scott (1880–1960), rebuilding Charles Barry's chamber; despatch boxes a gift from New Zealand, the Table from Canada, the Speaker's Chair from Australia · Opened 26 October 1950, replacing the chamber of 1852 destroyed on the night of 10 to 11 May 1941 · Oak panelling and green leather benches in a chamber 14 by 20.7 metres, seating 427 of the 650 MPs · Inside, principal floor, the northern end of the palace, north of the Central Lobby through the Members' Lobby; the Speaker's Chair is at the north end

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/palace-of-westminster/en/commons-chamber.mp3?v=997293 (125 s)

Look for:
- The two despatch boxes on the Table, one for each front bench: New Zealand pūriri wood, given after the 1941 bomb.
- The two red lines on the carpet in front of the front benches, two and a half metres apart.
- The Table of the House between the benches, a gift from Canada, where the mace lies whenever the House is sitting.
- The Speaker's Chair at the far north end, a gift from Australia.

Everything about this room is smaller than it looks on television. Fourteen metres by just over twenty. There are 650 Members of Parliament and seats for 427 of them, which is why, on the big days, they stand packed at both ends. The green is the Commons colour, and parliaments in India, Canada, Australia and New Zealand copied it: green for the lower house, red for the upper.

It is also newer than it looks. On the night of the tenth to the eleventh of May 1941 the palace took at least twelve hits. The Commons chamber and the roof of Westminster Hall were both on fire, the firefighters could not save both, and they chose the hall. This chamber was destroyed. Giles Gilbert Scott rebuilt it in a plainer style, and King George the Sixth opened it on the twenty-sixth of October 1950.

Much of what you see was a gift. The Speaker's Chair at the north end came from Australia. The Table in the middle came from Canada, and the mace lies on it whenever the House is sitting. The two boxes on the Table, one for each front bench, came from New Zealand, made of pūriri wood. They are copies of copies: modelled on the boxes in the Australian parliament, which were themselves replicas of the originals destroyed here in 1941. Inside the Opposition box is a Bible that was lying on the centre table when the bomb fell and came out of the ruins largely intact.

Now look at the carpet in front of the front benches. Two red lines, two and a half metres apart, which a Member may not cross while speaking. The story is that they are just over two sword-lengths apart, to stop debates ending in duels. There is no record of Members ever being allowed swords in here, although there are still loops of pink ribbon in the Members' cloakroom for hanging them up.

The Government sits on the Speaker's right and the Opposition on the left, and there are no crossbenches. No monarch has entered this chamber since Charles the First came in 1642 to arrest five Members. The Speaker, William Lenthall, told him: May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here. That is why, at every State Opening, the doors of this chamber are slammed in the face of Black Rod, the monarch's messenger from the Lords, who has to strike them three times with the staff before being let in. The blows have left a dent in the door.

### 5. Westminster Hall and Richard II's hammerbeam roof

Built for William II; roof by the royal carpenter Hugh Herland (c. 1330 – c. 1411) and walls remodelled by the master mason Henry Yevele (c. 1320 – 1400) for Richard II · 1097–1099; roof commissioned 1393 · Stone walls under an oak hammerbeam roof 20.7 by 73.2 metres, the largest clearspan medieval roof in England · Inside, the medieval hall on the west side of the palace beside the Cromwell Green visitor entrance, named on every tour; the steps at the south end lead up through St Stephen's Porch

Audio: https://audio.chiaro.ai/landmarks/palace-of-westminster/en/westminster-hall.mp3?v=1118292 (140 s)

Look for:
- The carved angels on the ends of the hammer beams, twenty-six of them, looking down the length of the hall.
- Richard the Second's white hart, chained and lying down, carved eighty-three times along the stone band that runs round the walls, no two quite alike.
- The six stone kings in niches on the south wall, survivors of the thirteen Richard the Second ordered in 1385.
- The Yorkstone floor, which began to delaminate under about 250,000 mourners in September 2022.

Lift your eyes and keep them up. This roof was built for Richard the Second, and the walls it rests on are older still.

The hall was built for William the Second, William Rufus, the Conqueror's son. The foundations went in in 1097, and he held his Whitsun feast here in 1099, when it was the largest hall in England and possibly in Europe. In 1393, Richard the Second commissioned a new roof from his royal carpenter, Hugh Herland, while the master mason Henry Yevele refaced the walls. The oak came from woods across the south-east of England, was framed up near Farnham in Surrey, thirty-five miles away, and brought here by wagon and barge. The result covers 20.7 by 73.2 metres without a single column, the largest clearspan medieval roof in England. The historian John Harvey called it the single greatest work of art of the whole of the European Middle Ages.

Find the angels. Twenty-six of them are carved on the ends of the hammer beams, the short timbers jutting out from the walls that give this kind of roof its name. Then look lower, along the carved stone band that runs round the walls, for a white deer with a chain round its neck, lying down. That is Richard's badge, the white hart, and it appears eighty-three times, no two exactly alike.

From the twelfth century to the nineteenth this was the country's courtroom. The courts of King's Bench, Chancery and Common Pleas sat in here until they moved to the Strand in 1882. William Wallace was tried here in 1305, Thomas More in 1535, Guy Fawkes in 1606, and in 1649 King Charles the First, condemned in the same hall where kings had held their coronation banquets. The last of those was George the Fourth's, in 1821; his successor thought them too expensive.

The roof has nearly been lost twice. In 1834, while the rest of the palace burned, James Braidwood's firemen cut away the roof joining the hall to the blazing Speaker's House and soaked this one, and a change of wind helped. In May 1941 it was alight again, and the politician Walter Elliot told the firefighters to save the hall rather than the Commons chamber, then smashed through a door with an axe so the hoses could get in. Deathwatch beetle, found in the timbers in 1913, was the quieter threat.

Last, look down, because this floor is where the nation says goodbye. The first lying-in-state here was Gladstone's, in 1898. An estimated one million people filed past Winston Churchill in 1965. In September 2022 about 250,000 came for Elizabeth the Second, and so many feet crossed the Yorkstone that the floor began to delaminate.

## Before you go

Palace of Westminster, London SW1A 0AA. Visitors go in at Cromwell Green, on the west side of the palace facing St Margaret Street and Westminster Abbey, beside Westminster Hall and Oliver Cromwell's statue. Tour tickets can also be bought at Parliament's ticket office at the front of Portcullis House on Victoria Embankment, SW1A 2LW.

Westminster station on the District, Circle and Jubilee lines is at the foot of Westminster Bridge, a few steps from the first stop, and is fully wheelchair accessible. Victoria, Charing Cross and Waterloo main-line stations are each about twenty minutes away on foot, and river boats call at Westminster Pier on Victoria Embankment.

- Public tours run on Saturdays all year and Monday to Saturday during parliamentary recesses, so outside recesses they are Saturday-only. Booking ahead gets the best price and guarantees a place, and Parliament asks you to arrive at least twenty minutes before the time on your ticket for the airport-style security check.
- This is a working building, and a tour can be cancelled or rerouted at short notice when parliamentary business requires it. Big Ben is a separate tour with its own ticket and is not part of the audio or the guided tour.
- Photographs are allowed only in Westminster Hall and St Stephen's Hall; cameras and phones are not permitted anywhere else on the tour route. There are no cloakrooms, and luggage larger than 60 by 40 centimetres is not allowed in.
- UK residents can ask their MP for a free Inside UK Parliament tour on a weekday, and anyone from the UK or overseas may watch debates and committee hearings in either House free of charge.

Official tickets: https://tickets.parliament.uk/content/ticket-options

Parliament's own guide is its self-guided audio tour, and it is the tour ticket rather than an extra: a multimedia handset, or a download to your own phone, covering more than fifteen stops including Westminster Hall, Central Lobby and both Chambers, in twelve languages including British Sign Language and audio description, plus a children's version in English. One child goes free with each full-paying adult. The alternative is the 90-minute guided tour with one of Parliament's in-house guides, given in English. These five Chiaro stops cost nothing and ask for no booking: play the outdoor pair on the pavement before your slot, and read or replay the three indoor ones afterwards, each script also written out in full.

Official site: https://www.parliament.uk/visiting/

## Questions

**Is there a free Palace of Westminster audio guide?**

Parliament's own audio guide comes with a paid tour ticket, so the free one is this page. Two of its stories are for the pavement, on Westminster Bridge and in Old Palace Yard, and three cover the Lords, the Commons and Westminster Hall for inside or afterwards, each with its script written out. For a carving or a statue it does not mention, photograph it where photography is allowed and ask the Chiaro app.

**Can I listen to the Palace of Westminster audio guide without a tour ticket?**

The first two stops, yes: Westminster Bridge and the public side of Old Palace Yard are open ground. The Lords and Commons Chambers are reached on the audio tour or the guided tour. Watching a debate from the public galleries is free, and the visitor pass you are given after security covers public areas that include Westminster Hall, St Stephen's Hall and Central Lobby.

**How much is the official Palace of Westminster audio guide?**

The official audio guide and the self-guided audio tour ticket are the same thing, priced for adults, young people aged 16 to 24 and children on Parliament's booking site. One child goes free with each full-paying adult, and booking in advance is the cheaper way to buy. The 90-minute guided tour is a separate ticket.

**Which days can visitors tour the Houses of Parliament?**

Saturdays throughout the year, and Monday to Saturday during parliamentary recesses. Outside recesses the paid tours are Saturday-only, although UK residents can arrange a free weekday tour through their MP. Tours can be cancelled at short notice for parliamentary business, so check your date on the booking site.

**Where is the visitor entrance to the Palace of Westminster?**

At Cromwell Green, on the west side of the palace facing St Margaret Street, next to Westminster Hall. Security screening happens there, which is why Parliament asks for twenty minutes in hand before your ticket time. The two outdoor stops on this page are a short walk from it: Westminster Bridge to the north and Old Palace Yard just to the south.

**Does the Palace of Westminster tour include Big Ben?**

No. Big Ben, in the Elizabeth Tower, is a separate tour with its own ticket and a climb of 334 steps to the belfry; neither the audio tour nor the guided tour goes up it. You can hear the tower's story from Westminster Bridge instead, at stop one here.

## Continue in the app

Point Chiaro at anything at the Palace of Westminster.

Five stops barely scratch a building with more than 1,100 rooms, carved coats of arms on every doorway and statues of statesmen most visitors cannot name. In Westminster Hall and St Stephen's Hall, where photographs are allowed, frame a face in stone or a badge in the woodwork and Chiaro tells you who put it there and why; for the rooms where cameras stay away, ask it about what you saw when you are outside again.

Download Chiaro: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id6745618830?pt=127817940&ct=palace-of-westminster-md&mt=8