St Stephen’s Chapel: Royal Chapel and House of Commons Chamber
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.9
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- English
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Chapel
On this page13 sections
History
St Stephen’s Chapel was a Gothic royal chapel in the old Palace of Westminster in London, United Kingdom, completed around 1297 after construction continued through the reigns of Henry III’s successors. Henry III reportedly intended it to rival Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, whose consecration he witnessed in 1248. The two-storey building served the royal family in its Upper Chapel and the royal household and courtiers in its Lower Chapel.
A royal chapel
The chapel was the setting for two royal weddings. Richard II married Anne of Bohemia there on 20 January 1382, when he was fifteen and Anne was sixteen. On 15 January 1478, Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the Princes in the Tower, married Anne Mowbray in the chapel. Anne died at the age of eight. Her coffin was found at Stepney in 1964, and her remains were later reinterred in Westminster Abbey.
St Stephen’s Chapel also received the body of Edward IV after his death at the Palace of Westminster on 9 April 1483. His body was brought to the chapel the following day and lay in state there for eight days before burial at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. On 30 March 1533, Thomas Cranmer was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in the chapel.
From chapel to parliamentary chamber
After Henry VIII’s death, the Palace of Westminster ceased to be a royal residence. The Abolition of Chantries Acts of 1545 and 1547 ended the chapel’s original religious function, and the building became the debating chamber of the House of Commons. The House of Commons is the elected lower chamber of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. St Stephen’s served first the House of Commons of England and later the House of Commons of Great Britain until 1834.
The former chapel’s arrangement influenced parliamentary practice. The Speaker’s chair stood on the former altar steps, the House Table took the place of the lectern, and Members sat opposite one another in the medieval choir stalls. The retained choir screen, a structure separating the choir from the main body of a church, had two entrances. These helped establish the voting arrangement in which Members voting “aye” passed through the right-hand door and those voting “no” through the left.
The Acts of Union incorporated Scotland into Great Britain in 1707 and Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1800. The resulting increase in Members required additional seating in the former chapel. By the nineteenth century, alterations had left its interior plain and modest in comparison with its medieval appearance.
Later history and destruction
Oliver Cromwell had the crypt, a space beneath a church or chapel, whitewashed and used it to stable his horses. On the night before the 1911 census, the women’s suffragist Emily Davison slept in a broom cupboard at the rear of the crypt. She did so to give the House of Commons as her address, although women could not stand for Parliament or vote. Tony Benn later installed an unofficial commemorative plaque in the cupboard.
A fire in 1834 destroyed the main body of St Stephen’s Chapel, while the crypt and adjoining cloisters barely survived. The flames stripped away later additions and exposed medieval decorative work within the remaining stone shell. This revealed fabric that attracted visitors and antiquaries before the shell itself was demolished.
The chapel’s historical importance shaped the nineteenth-century replacement Palace of Westminster. St Stephen’s Hall was built on the same site and floor plan, with the position of the former Speaker’s chair marked on the floor. The hall and its porch are reached through St Stephen’s Entrance, the public entrance to the House of Commons. Beneath the hall, the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft was restored after falling into disuse before the fire. It returned to worship and continues as an Anglican chapel, used for weddings by children of peers entitled to the style “Honourable” and for baptisms by Members of Parliament and peers.
Remains
The original building was a two-storey Gothic chapel containing an Upper Chapel and a Lower Chapel. Its surviving physical history is represented by the crypt and adjoining cloisters, by objects rescued from the fire, and by the successor spaces built over the chapel’s former footprint.
Altered chapel interior
Sixteenth-century changes
Late-sixteenth-century work replaced the original furnishings, whitewashed the interior, and exchanged the stained-glass windows for plain glass. The chapel’s medieval arrangement was subsequently adapted for parliamentary use, with the former altar steps, lectern position, choir stalls, and choir screen shaping the chamber’s working layout.
Wren’s interior reconstruction
Christopher Wren made more extensive alterations in the 1690s. The clerestory, an upper wall with windows above the main roofline, and the vaulted ceiling were removed, substantially lowering the building. Large medieval windows were walled up and replaced by smaller windows cut into new stonework. The walls were reduced in thickness to create more seating, and galleries for male spectators were added along both sides. Wainscoting and oak panelling concealed the medieval interior.
A false ceiling was installed to improve acoustics. The attic space above it contained a ventilation lantern and functioned as a ladies’ gallery, although the lantern allowed only a severely restricted view of the chamber. James Wyatt made further changes to the exterior at the end of the eighteenth century.
Fire-damaged fabric and successor spaces
Stone shell and cloisters
The 1834 fire destroyed the chapel’s principal fabric but left a stone shell in which many later additions had burned away. Medieval decorative work became visible in the shell, while the adjoining cloisters barely survived. Among the furnishings rescued from the fire was the Table of the House, now kept in the Speaker’s apartments in the Palace of Westminster.
St Stephen’s Hall
St Stephen’s Hall and its porch occupy the exact site of the former chapel within the new Palace of Westminster. They follow the old chapel’s floor plan, and the position of the former Speaker’s chair is marked on the floor. The spaces are accessed through St Stephen’s Entrance.
Chapel of St Mary Undercroft
The Chapel of St Mary Undercroft lies in the crypt beneath St Stephen’s Hall. After restoration, it resumed use as a place of worship and remains an Anglican chapel. Its continuing religious function preserves the chapel use associated with the underground part of the former complex.
Emily Davison’s broom cupboard
A broom cupboard in the rear part of the crypt is associated with Emily Davison’s overnight stay before the 1911 census. An unofficial plaque commemorating the event was installed there around 1991. Palace authorities later required its removal, and screw holes from a second plaque remained in the cupboard.
