Speaker's House
Speaker's House is the official residence of the Speaker of the House of Commons, the lower house and primary chamber of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is located in the Palace of Westminster in London. It was originally located next to St Stephen's Chapel and was rebuilt and enlarged by James Wyatt in the early 19th century. After the burning of Parliament in 1834 it was rebuilt by Charles Barry as part of the new Palace of Westminster in the Perpendicular Gothic Revival style. It is located at the northeast corner of the palace and is used for official functions and meetings. Each day, prior to the sitting of the House of Commons, the Speaker and other officials walk in procession from the apartments to the House of Commons Chamber. Design Pre-1834 The first Speaker to be granted an official residence was Henry Addington in 1790. Official dinners were given by the Speaker in the crypt under St Stephen's Chapel (the crypt is now St Mary Undercroft). The original Speaker's House adjoined St Stephen's Chapel. The writer Theodore Hook was frequently entertained there by Sir Charles Manners-Sutton during his speakership. The Speaker's House was rebuilt by James Wyatt between 1802 and 1808. Wyatt also constructed a new group of offices at the east side of Old Palace Yard; these buildings and the Speaker's House were the only completed structures of his masterplan for the palace before his 1813 death. The total cost of these two projects was in excess of £200,000 (). Speaker Charles Abbot wrote in his diary in 1803 that the "rebuilding and altering the Speaker's House, which Mr. Wyatt had promised to complete before winter, proceeded very slowly", but he had still been able to host parliamentarians for dinners. At a dinner at the home of Lord Camden in 1808, The 1st Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale told Abbot that the Whig MP George Tierney would be complaining in the Commons about the expenditure of £70,000 on the Speaker's House (). Abbot told Cumberland that Tierney should take the issue up with Wyatt. John Britton, writing in his 1815 book Beauties of England and Wales, describes the Speaker's House as having been greatly altered, enlarged and beautified under the direction of Wyatt and that it was "most exquistly and tastefully ornimated" under Speaker Abbot. Following the fire in 1834, the Speaker's residence was partly located at the nearby Jewel Tower. The speaker also lived in a house in Eaton Square in Belgravia while the Palace of Westminster was being rebuilt. Present residence After the burning of Parliament in 1834, it was rebuilt by Charles Barry as part of the new Palace of Westminster in the Perpendicular Gothic Revival style. Barry had won the competition to rebuild the palace in 1836, and the foundation stone was laid in 1840. The new residence of the Speaker was completed in 1859, it being one of the last parts of the new Palace of Westminster to be completed. It