UNDERGOING REPAIRS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 53, Issue 208, 15 June 1933, Page 8

UNDERGOING REPAIRS.

HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT. Approachino; the Houses of Parliament from the south end of Westminster Bridge just now one gets an extraordinary spectacle of the great pile swathed in scaffolding. It envelops the Palace; of Westminster like an enormous spider's webj climbing up and around the dizziest pinnacles. The repair of the Palace stonework is a tremendous job. It is estimated that it will take 10 years. One of the effects of it is to turn the Serjeant-at-Arms, Admiral Sir Colin Keppel, out of his private residence in the Palace, so that stonework may be repaired or replaced. At the same time some internal renovations have been done in the Serjeant-at-Arms' house. When the residence of the Serjeant-at-Arms is finished in a month or two —it has been.going on for" months —the Speaker will move out o? his' official residence into that normally occupied by Sir Colin Keppel. Then the restor-ers-will start on the Speaker's house. That again will take many months, and during all this time the Serjeant-at-Arms will continue to be an exile. Soon the scaffolding for the workmen will be.swarmlng round about the face of Big Ben. The figures which surround the great dial are all badly weather-eaten. The disfiguration cannet be seen from the ground, but the corrosion of the stone has created a certain amount of danger from falling pieces. A year or two ago an M.iP. was struck by a small fragment which fell. If it had been half a gargoyle