Speaker's Study

This pleasant south facing room is where the Speaker holds his meetings on the daily business of the House of Commons. The fine proportions of the room with its great windows, carved oak panelling and doors, and stencilled ceiling panels are characteristic of the State Apartments.

Also typical of these rich interiors is the fireplace of Purbeck marble with added brass decoration, surmounted by a large mirror. The wallpaper with its strong pattern incorporating a lion and a rose was one of Pugin’s designs for large rooms at Westminster.

One end of the room houses cabinets containing silver, most of which forms part of the Speaker’s plate, an official dinner service that was ordered in 1833 and supplied by Garrard.

The space has also been taken up recently by a big screen to enable video conferencing - as Covid restrictions in 2020 limited face to face encounters and increased demand for virtual meetings.

Most of the other furniture in the room, except for some of the chairs, was designed specifically for the New Palace of Westminster. The silver calendar with its Gothic details and the letter-rack were designed by Augustus Welby Pugin.

Among the portraits of Speakers which hang in this room are those of Sir Thomas More, briefly Speaker in 1523, who is shown beside the bookcase in a copy of a painting by Holbein, and William Lenthall. Lenthall’s portrait shows him in the Speaker’s gown and wearing a skull cap and was probably painted by Henry Paert, a minor artist of the period. Both More and Lenthall were among the first portraits in the collection. That of Sir Thomas More was given by Speaker Abbot whose fine portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence hangs beside the oriel window.