Welcome
The Society was formed in 1985 to save from demolition London's first public library in Great Smith Street (above right). Since then we have kept a watchful eye on developments in this area, which includes the World Heritage Site encompassing the Abbey and Houses of Parliament. We respond on behalf of residents and businesses to local planning applications. Our 350+ members enjoy local visits & talks of historic and other interest, social events and an archive of books, prints, plans and ephemera.
Visits & Special 35th Anniversary Celebrations 2020
We are not running our visits and events programme for the rest of this year and bookings have been moved to 2021. In the interim we continue our local history research and respond to all the planning applications. We are adapting fast and have put on a number of virtual talks by experts via Zoom and in the new year, we will announce our 2021 programme.
Hopefully we will celebrate next year with a 36th Anniversary Party rather than the 35th we had planned!
Stay well
Sue Ball
Chair
Thorney Tales (20) A History of Parliament in Two Glimpses
History often comes in glimpses and few are more poignant than what you see from the main cloister of Westminster Abbey. If you go into the cloister, which is free and open to the public most days of the week (though not at the time of writing during 2nd lockdown) you will see the top of the Chapter House in the middle of the picture (below) at the back. This is where the monks used to meet daily to discuss the business of the day. In 1352 it became the first place where the King, whose Palace was nearby, formally met Parliament which usually meant he needed to ask for more taxes. In 1362 a statute established that Parliament must approve of all taxation.
View of the Refectory wall (right) with the Chapter House in the background.
In 1397 Parliament moved from there to the Refectory, or dining hall, of the monastery. A single remaining wall of that medieval refectory is still in existence and can be seen peeping above the wall of the cloister on the right of the photo (above).
The other side of the wall is part of Westminster School in the garden of Ashburnham House and can’t be experienced unless you are lucky enough to get on a tour. But it can be glimpsed if you go to the upstairs section of the Abbey’s Cellarium café where if you look out of the window you will see a small section of the medieval wall in all its pristine glory (photo below). The dining hall was much bigger than the Chapter House and more fit for purpose even though it was inconvenient for the monks to have to clear up to make room for King and Commons.
View from the Cellarium window
After the Reformation Parliament was moved over the road in Old Palace Yard to the chapel of St Stephen’s College after the monks were forced to vacate it as it no longer served any religious purpose. In 1547 the fiercely Protestant Edward VI gave the Commons full use of the chapel where they stayed for nearly 300 years until it burned down in 1834. The Commons retained the shape of the old chapel where monks faced each other in long lines which is why the design of today's Parliament is oppositional rather than circular as in many other countries.
The evolution of Parliament wasn’t quite as linear as it might seem. Assemblies of one kind and another - such as Witans - had existed for centuries. The first recorded use of the word “Parliament” was in 1236 under Henry III but it was not like the Parliament of today any more than Simon de Montford’s was in 1265 which involved imprisoning the king and packing parliament with cronies.
Refurbishment of 7 Millbank
The Society's 34th AGM & Talk via Zoom - Tuesday 10th November
Our AGM was held on 10th November. After the business of the meeting, we were pleased to welcome historian Dorian Gerhold to talk on The history of Victoria Tower Gardens - From Palace and Abbey to public park. Please click the image below for a recording of the talk. 
The Society's 34th AGM & Talk via Zoom - Tuesday 10th November
Save Victoria Tower Gardens - Planning Inquiry 6th October - 13th November
UPDATE! OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2020
The long awaited inquiry began at 10am on 6th October and ran until 13th November. Daily recordings of all Sessions can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQqDetL1R5aRgbNm8PDViNw We now patiently await the result which is not expected until the Appeal by the LGT (London Gardens Trust) has been heard.
Read more: Save Victoria Tower Gardens - Planning Inquiry 6th October - 13th November
Victoria Tower Gardens - Judicial Review brought by the London Gardens Trust
UPDATE ! 20th October 2020
The London Gardens Trust (Previously LPGT) will APPEAL the decision reached at the Judicial Review.
UPDATE ! 5th October 2020
The Judicial Review has now come and gone, a moment of great excitement that resulted in LPGT winning one argument and losing another. The Government was castigated for not having implemented sufficiently convincing “handling arrangements” to guarantee a total separation between its two internal functions (applicant and also decision-maker – It is considered this is a conflict of interest), but the judge sadly did not consider the arguments sufficiently serious to suggest that a final decision on this matter should be taken away from the Minister who is currently designated to make it. LPGT and SVTG (Save Victoria Tower Gardens Campaign) are of course troubled by this decision and currently very seriously considering an appeal….
Read more: Victoria Tower Gardens - Judicial Review brought by the London Gardens Trust
What the Memorial Planning Inquiry needs to know about Victoria Tower Gardens
“A beautiful and irreplaceable park, enjoyed by residents, workers and tourists for more than a century, would in effect be destroyed”.
The public inquiry into the Government’s controversial plans to construct a Holocaust Memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens next to the Houses of Parliament has just opened. The historian Dorian Gerhold has published a very timely and fascinating study of the history of the gardens and its “planned destruction” which ought to be read by everyone concerned with the inquiry.
The first part is a marvellously illustrated pre-history of Victoria Tower Gardens with all the scholarship and attention to detail that the author displayed in his previous books including London Bridge and its Houses (1209 -1761) It tells how Victoria Tower Gardens (VTG) was created in two stages. The northern part (near the Houses of Parliament) was made possible when in 1879, WH Smith the newspaper retailer and MP donated £1000 on the condition that it was “for the use of the inhabitants, and children especially, of Westminster“. Parliament added £1400 on the understanding that the gardens would be kept as a recreation ground as agreed with Smith. The second, more expensive, stage involved widening the gardens at the southern end (near Lambeth Bridge). The Government donated land to enable this to happen on condition again that it was kept as a garden in keeping with the undertakings made to WH Smith.
It is this founding concept of the gardens as a place of relaxation for everyone that is at risk if the Government’s determination to site a Holocaust Memorial and learning centre there succeeds. Gerhold, like most of the opponents of the scheme including many Jewish people, is in favour of a memorial but argues why would you destroy a lovely park if there were more suitable places nearby?
The Memorial and Learning Centre, he argues, would occupy 27% of the accessible and usable green space in the gardens, but would “more than treble the number of people in the gardens at any one time”. After rejecting (or ignoring ?) many other sites that would better fulfill the original Holocaust Commission requirements and been able to accommodate these large visitor numbers, the Government's solution – conjured out of nowhere by David Cameron, was that it should be next to Parliament. But as the author points out there is no reason to have it there. The government wasn’t complicit in the Holocaust unlike the slave trade which is remembered in the same gardens by the Buxton Fountain.
Gerhold is devastating on the procedures adopted, from the cronyism involved in the original suggestion, to the Government “calling in" the plans after discovering that the (Conservative) Westminster Council was likely to reject them.
They are now being considered by an inspector but the final decision is normally made by a government minister. However, the Secretary of State Robert Jenrick has had to recuse himself as his objectivity has been impaired by his emphasis that the government remains “implacably committed“ to the project. The decision has been delegated to one of his junior ministers but as Gerhold says: “Is it credible that an impartial, unbiased decision can be made by a junior minister when both his Secretary of State and the Prime Minister have emphasised their continuing commitment to the project ?"
This is but part of a battalion of arguments he brings to justify his conclusion: “A beautiful and irreplaceable park, enjoyed by residents, workers and tourists for more than a century, would in effect be destroyed”.
What the Memorial Planning Inquiry needs to know about Victoria Tower Gardens.
Autumn/Winter 2020 Newsletter
Click image to view
A History of St James's Park through Trees, Talk by Greg Packman - October 2020
"HENRY VIII - AN UNLIKELY PIONEER OF REWILDING! "
To watch, click image below:
A History of St James's Park through Trees - Talk by Greg Packman