New Palace Yard

New palace yard, Westminster, is betn the Thames and King str. W. and betn Westminster hall S. and Channel row N. being from Cha + S. 870 Yds.

[New Palace Yard.] ... by a turning Passage Eastward through the Gatehouse, [King Street] leadeth into the New Palace Yard. Which is a spacious Place, convenient for the Reception and Standing of Coaches in the Term Time, and Sessions of Parliament; and is graced with good Buildings well inhabited. Here is the common Entrance into Westminster Hall, where the Judges sit: And here is Westminster Bridge, for taking Boat, for such as are minded to go to London or elsewhere by Water. On the South is a narrow Passage into Channel [or Chanon] Row. Out of this New Palace Yard is a Passage on the West through St. Margaret's Lane, North into the Old Palace Yard, a spacious Place also well built.

New Palace yard, by Union street, Westminster. When King Richard II. rebuilt Westminster Hall in the year 1397, that part was called the New Palace, and being inclosed with a wall, it had four gates, of which that leading to Westminster stairs is the only one now standing. The three others that have been demolished were, one on the north, which led to the Woolstaple; another to the west, a beautiful and stately edifice called High Gate, at the east end of Union street; and another at the north end of St. Margaret's lane. Maitland.

Palace-Yard (New), Westminster,—behind the houses which form the S. side of Bridge-st., extending to Westminster-hall.

New Palace Yard, Westminster, is behind the houses which form the east side of Bridge-street, extending to Westminster Hall.

Palace Yard (New), the open space before the north entrance to Westminster Hall, so called from being the great court of the new palace begun by William II., of which Westminster Hall was the chief feature completed. The Clock-tower, long the distinguishing feature of New Palace Yard, was originally built, temp. Edward I., out of the fine imposed on Ralph de Hingham, Chief Justice of England. There is a capital view of it by Hollar. The great bell of the tower (Westminster Tom) was given by William III. to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's; and the metal of which it was made forms a part of the great bell of the Cathedral.

Before the Great Hall there is a large Court called the new Palace, where there is a strong tower of stone, containing a clock, which striketh on a great Bell [Great Tom of Westminster] every hour, to give notice to the Judges how the time passeth; when the wind is south-south-west, it may be heard unto any part of London, and commonly it presageth wet weather.—Howell's Londinopolis, fol. 1657, p. 378; and see Ned Ward, The London Spy, pt. 8.

The New Palace Yard being anciently inclosed with a wall, there were four gates therein; the only one at present remaining is that on the east which leads to Westminster stairs; and the three others that are demolished were that on the north which led to the Woolstaple; that on the west called Highgate (a very beautiful and stately edifice) was situate at the east end of Union Street; but it having occasioned great obstruction to the members of Parliament in their passage to and from their respective Houses, the same was taken down in the year 1706, as was also the third at the north end of St. Margaret's Lane, anno 1731, on the same account.—Maitland, ed. 1739, p. 729.

That ingeniose tractat [Harrington's Oceana], together with his and H. Nevill's smart discourses and inculcations, dayly at Coffee-houses made many Proselytes. Insomuch, that A°. 1659, the beginning of Michaelmas time, he [Harrington] had every night a meeting at the (then) Turk's Head in the New Palace Yard, where they take water, the next house to the stairs at one Miles's, where was made purposely a large ovall-table, with a passage in the middle for Miles to deliver his coffee. About it sate his disciples, and the virtuosi. The discourses in this kind were the most ingeniose and smart that ever I heard or expect to hear, and lauded with great eagernesse: the arguments in the Parl^t. House were but flatt to it. Here we had (very formally) a ballotting box, and ballotted how things should be carried by way of Tentamens. The room was every evening full as it could be crammed. Mr. Cyriack Skinner, an ingeniose young gent., scholar to John Milton, was chaire-man. —Aubrey's Letters, vol. iii. p. 371.

The Club, called the Rota, lasted little more than a year, Harrington having been arrested and sent to the Tower in 1661. Pepys records a visit he paid to it, January 10, 1660. "To the Coffee-house, where were a great confluence of gentlemen: viz., Mr. Harrington [Sir William] Poultny, chairman, Gold, Dr. Petty [Sir William Petty, ancestor of the Marquis of Lansdowne], etc., where admirable discourse till 9 at night."

The sturdy Puritan, John Stubbs of Lincoln's Inn, and his servant Robert Page, had their right hands cut off in New Palace Yard, December 3, 1580, for a seditious libel against the Queen [Elizabeth] concerning her projected marriage with the Duke of Anjou. On March 2, 1585, William Parry, convicted of high treason, was brought from the Tower to the Palace Court, and there hanged and quartered; and in February 1587, Thomas Lovelace, condemned by the Star Chamber for libellous charges, was carried about Westminster Hall and Palace Yard, set in the pillory and had one of his ears cut off. On St. Peter's Day, 1612, Robert Creighton Lord Sanquhar was hanged in front of Westminster Hall for hiring two ruffians to murder Turner, a fencing-master, by whom he had accidentally lost an eye. Dr. Alexander Leighton, the father of Archbishop Leighton, was here publicly whipped, his ears cut off, his nose slit, branded on the face with the letters S.S. (Sower of Sedition), and afterwards made to stand in the pillory, at the instigation of Laud, November 26, 1630, for a libel on the Bishops.¹ Here, March 9, 1649, the Duke of Hamilton and Lord Capel were beheaded; and here in May 1685 Titus Oates stood in the pillory and was nearly stoned to death. The last who stood in the pillory, in New Palace Yard, February 14, 1765, was Mr. John Williams, bookseller of Fleet Street, for republishing the obnoxious North Briton, but with him the exposure was rather a triumph than a punishment, he holding a sprig of laurel all the while in his hand, and receiving the acclamations of the assembled multitude, whilst opposite the pillory was suspended a jack-boot, a Scotch cap and an axe. At the expiration of the sentence the boot and cap were consigned to a bonfire that had been prepared for the purpose, and Williams was carried home in triumph in the hackney-coach "No. 45."

His Majesty fully authorises his most excellent Lord Eldon to give his consent to the House of Lords proceeding with these Bills, and in particular approves of the one for laying open Westminster Abbey to Palace Yard. Whatever makes the people more accustomed to view cathedrals must raise their veneration for the Established Church. The King will with equal pleasure consent, when it is proposed, to the purchasing and pulling down the west [south] side of Bridge Street, and the houses fronting Westminster Hall; as it will be opening to the traveller that ancient pile, which is the seat of administration of the best laws, and the most uprightly administered; and if the people really valued the religion and laws of this blessed country, we should stand on a rock that no time could destroy.—King George III. to Lord Chancellor Eldon, June 8, 1804.

Sixty years were to pass away before the improvement suggested by the good old king was effected. In 1865, as a part of the scheme of Sir Charles Barry for the completion of the Houses of Parliament the area of New Palace Yard was cleared and laid out as an open place; a covered way, or cloister, for the use of members of the two Houses, was constructed along its eastern side, and the houses on the south side of Bridge Street removed, and the whole enclosed with an iron railing, the handiwork of Skidmore of Coventry, with handsome gates by Hardman of Birmingham; the whole under the directions of Sir C. Barry, R.A. A part of the design was to decorate the enclosure with bronze statues of distinguished statesmen, but the statues of Peel, Palmerston, Derby, and Beaconsfield, are at the sides of the garden plot opposite to it, called Parliament Square. Westmacott's statue of Canning, which formerly stood there, has been removed farther west. In the residence attached to the sinecure office of Yeoman-Usher of the Exchequer, in New Palace Yard, William Godwin spent the last three years of his life, and there died, April 7, 1836, at the age of eighty years.

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¹ Only half the whipping and cutting was performed in New Palace Yard, the sentence being completed eight days later at the pillory in Cheapside.