WESTMINSTER HALL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18455, 19 July 1923, Page 9

WESTMINSTER HALL.

A STAGE OF BRITISH HISTORY

REOPENED BY THE KING.

A. and N.Z. LONDON, July 17. The King and Queen reopened Westminster Hall, which has been closed for the past eight years for the restoration of the roof. The King, replying to an address of welcome, said that the Hall appealed in a special manner to the mind and imagination of . the whole- Englishspeaking race. He congratulated all concerned in the restoration of a priceless treasure of our national life. He sincerely trusted that centuries of new life would be given to this; masterpiece of British architecture. '"' ,' The King was presented with a casket made from a piece of , the old roof timbers.

Westminster Hall, next to the Tower and Westminster Abbey, is the most historic edifice in London. It was begun by William Eufus in 1097 and enlarged by his successors. Richard 11., in 1397, caused it to be rebuilt, and added a grand oak roof, described as "one of the finest feats of carpentry extant." The wood, having in the course of centuries become seriously decaved, was in 1913-16 judiciously patched' and reinforced with steel. Westminster Hall is probably the largest hall in the world with a roof unsupported by pillars, excepting, of course,; modern railway stations. Its length is 23blt, breadth 67Jft., height, 9pft. • -' ■ ' The historical associations of the tt all are full of interest. Here some of the earliest Parliaments assembled, and from 1224 until 1882 the Law Courts were held within And around. Richard 11., who re built the Hall, was here by unkindly fate deposed. It was the scene of the trial and condemnation of Charles 1., ana oi the proclamation of Cromwell as Lord Protector. Here, a few years later, Cromwell's head was brought from westminster Abbey, with those of . Bradshaw and Ireton, and impaled on an iron-tipped pike on the southern gable for something fikfl a quarter of a century. The; Protector's head was blown down during a heavy storm in 1686 and secreted, it- is said, by a sentry. In Westminster Ha 1 were tried and condemned William Wallace Lord Cobham, Sir Thomas' More, the ' Protector Somerset, the Earl of Essex. Sir Thomas Wyatt, Guy Fawkos and the Earl of Strafford. It was the scene, too, of the acquittal of the seven bishops (1688), and of the long trial of Warren Hastings. On May 26 an.! if, 1898, Mr. Gladstone's body lay ; here in State, previous to his interment in Westminster Abbey. The Hall, too, was the scene of the lying-in-state of King Edward VII. from May 17 to 20, 1910. Ranged along the sides of the Hall are statues of Stuart and Hanoverian sovereigns. Tablets' on the stairs and in the middle of the Hall mark the spots where Charles I. and Strafford stood during their trials, and another brass records the lving-in-stale of King Edward VII. . .