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Caroline Shenton

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Parliament and the Portcullis

3 May 2012 By Caroline Shenton

The use of the Portcullis as a specifically Parliamentary symbol is not a particularly ancient one.  In fact it dates from the building of the new Palace of Westminster the 19th century.  The genius of Charles Barry’s design for the west front of the Palace (below right) was – among other things – to match it to the appearance of the Henry VII Chapel of Westminster Abbey, directly across Old Palace Yard (below left).  

The Chapel was studded with stone Portcullises.  These little stylised gates were in fact the heraldic badge of Lady Margaret Beaufort (1443-1509), Henry VII’s fearsome and brilliant mother, hence its use on the chapel he endowed in the first decade of the 16th century.  No doubt there were some Portcullises in the buildings and decorations of the old Palace of Westminster from the time of Henry VII and the early reign of Henry VIII (the royal family moved out after a fire in 1512/13).  But their purpose was to signal the presence of work commissioned under those kings, not to symbolise Parliament as an institution.

However, Charles Barry was so taken with it as a symbol that he used it to identify his plans when they were submitted anonymously to the competition judges assessing designs for the new Palace in 1836.  Pugin later used it extensively for the interior design of the Palace – it is the essence of neo-gothic, and can be seen everywhere from wallpapers to chairs to carpets.  In the 21st century the symbol has come to stand for the House of Lords (red) and the House of Commons (green), and like any other trademark its use is strictly controlled.

And now, spot the difference between these two buildings displaying Portcullises…

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Filed Under: Historic Westminster, Parliamentary History

About Caroline Shenton

Dr Caroline Shenton is an archivist and historian. She was formerly Director of the Parliamentary Archives in London, and before that was a senior archivist at the National Archives. Her book The Day Parliament Burned Down won the Political Book of the Year Award in 2013 and Mary Beard called it 'microhistory at its absolute best' while Dan Jones considered it 'glorious'. Its acclaimed sequel, Mr Barryís War, about the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster, was a Book of the Year in 2016 for The Daily Telegraph and BBC History Magazine and was described by Lucy Worsley as 'a real jewel, finely wrought and beautiful'. During 2017 Caroline was Political Writer in Residence at Gladstone's Library.

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About Caroline

Dr Caroline Shenton is an archivist and historian. Her book The Day Parliament Burned Down won the Political Book of the Year Award in 2013. Read More…

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