New interdisciplinary research project aims to research St. Stephen’s Chapel – the famous royal chapel at Westminster

The modern English Parliament is famous for its special setting. While most other parliaments are seated in amphitheatres, the English members of parliament are seated as if in a church. The reason is that the parliament from the middle ages and onwards met in the chapel of St. Stephen’s in Westminster. The project will take place in new collaboration with the Palace of Westminster.

A new AHRC-funded project (£976,296) brings together a team of historians and art historians to research a building which was successively a royal chapel, the House of Commons, and the ceremonial entry-way to Parliament.

Principal Investigator Dr John Cooper explains: ‘This is an unprecedented opportunity to explore the significance of a space which has been at the heart of public life since the thirteenth century.  The welcome from the modern-day Palace of Westminster has been wonderful.’

The research will feed into a digital reconstruction of St Stephen’s in its successive roles, modelled by the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture.  Co-Investigators are Dr Tim Ayers of York University and Professor Miles Taylor of the Institute of Historical Research; the project runs for three years from October 2013.