Neighbours of the Commons: Some lost buildings at Westminster and their occupants in the seventeenth century

Based in the former St Stephen's chapel, in the seventeenth century the House of Commons was surrounded by a complex warren of buildings running along the riverfront of the old Palace of Westminster, occupied by public officials and private individuals.  Drawing on a largely untapped wealth of archival, visual and material evidence, this paper will showcase some recent findings on these places and people by taking a virtual tour of the Commons precincts. This will include the Westminster Burgess Court in St Mary Undercroft, the Treasury of Receipt of the Exchequer and the Auditor's House to the north of the Commons, and to its south, the Cotton House and Garden and the Queen's Bridge.  It will point up the inter connectivity of this crowded community, from its collections demonstrating sophistication and taste and its library and records supporting constitutional and antiquarian research on the one hand to its squalid landing stage and its overstretched infrastructure of drains and sewers on the other.  Many research questions arise from this virtual tour, and these will help to inform the work of the two Ph.D students which the University of York is generously supporting to explore these fascinating lost buildings and community in far more depth, and to take their history forward into the nineteenth century.  

Elizabeth Hallam Smith is the former Director of Information Services and Librarian at the House of Lords (2006-2016) and is now an academic historian specialising in the history of the Palace of Westminster. An Honorary Research Professor at the University of York and a research consultant in Parliament’s Architecture and Heritage team, she has published widely on history and archival science and is advising on restoration and archaeology at Westminster. Her current project is on St Stephen’s cloisters and St Mary Undercroft, 1348-2020, supported by a Leverhulme Trust Emeritus Research Fellowship.