Banqueting House (Historic Royal Palaces)

Address: | Whitehall Palace, Whitehall, SW1A 2ER |
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Phone: | 0870 482 7777 |
Website: | |
Opening times: | Mon–Sun 10:00–17:00 |
How to get there: | Tube: Westminster/Charing Cross |
Entry fee: | Admission charge, free for children under 16 |
Additional information: | Disabled access, small shop |
The Banqueting House is the most obvious and complete remnant of the old royal Whitehall Palace, which occupied a vast area from St James’s Park to the river, and from Charing Cross to Parliament Square, and was the principal residence and seat of government of the Tudor and Stuart monarchy (16th and 17th centuries). The residential part of the palace was almost totally destroyed in a disastrous fire in 1698, but the Banqueting House was saved. Erected on the site of an old Elizabethan banqueting house, which had been rebuilt in 1606 but destroyed by fire in 1619, the new structure (1619–22) was to be a fitting setting for festive occasions, formal spectacles and grand court ceremonials. A committee was formed to plan the new building, which was designed by the great architect Inigo Jones. Jones’s approach to architecture, based on classical Roman models, the mathematical principles of Vitruvius and the pure designs of the Renaissance architect Palladio, was revolutionary in Britain. His strict use of the orders, Ionic below and Corinthian above, the alternate triangular and segmental window pediments, and the internal double cube proportions of the main hall, produced a rational, measured and dignified building of tremendous impact. Externally the building has been altered: sash windows were installed in 1713, and in the 19th century it was given a Portland stone façade. Internally, however, it has been restored to how it would have appeared in early Stuart times, a fitting stage for state occasions such as the international marriage negotiations conducted by James I and the reception of foreign ambassadors. The king and court could enter from the north, from the palace’s Privy Gallery, where the throne, under its symbolic canopy of state, was erected. For state occasions, when magnificence was required, the walls below the gallery were hung with rich tapestries which blocked the windows. The public was admitted from the south, the entrance approached up a timber staircase (the present entrance and staircase were added by James Wyatt 1808–09—note the sculpture bust of James I by Hubert Le Sueur, commissioned by James’s son Charles I in 1639). | |
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