AT A GLANCE
Why go?
The House of Lords is the upper chamber of the UK Parliament, meeting in the red-and-gold splendour of the Palace of Westminster on the banks of the Thames. More than a working legislature, it is one of the most lavishly decorated sets of rooms in Britain—a place where centuries of history, neo-Gothic architecture and living political ritual sit side by side, and where the public can watch law-making unfold for free from the gallery above the chamber.↗↗
What draws visitors here is the rare combination of grandeur and accessibility. You can stand in the Lords Chamber where the King's throne rises on its dais, wander the Royal Gallery hung with Napoleonic battle scenes, and look up at a ceiling studded with the emblems of medieval kings—all within an active government building that still debates the news of the day.↗↗
The red heart of Parliament
At the centre of the experience is the Lords Chamber, the most richly decorated room in the Palace of Westminster. Because it is where the three elements of Parliament—the Sovereign, the Lords and the Commons—come together, its designers made it the grandest interior in the building. Furnishings are predominantly red, the heraldic colour that signals the Lords end of the palace in deliberate contrast to the green of the Commons.
