This miniature by Matthew Paris represents King William holding Westminster Hall. As you can see, this is not how it looks today.  But once it was the greatest of the king’s projects, a building through which he could display his prowess and vie with the deathless reputation of his father.

With internal measurements of 240 ft by 67ft and 6 inches, it was perhaps the largest hall in Europe, certainly in England. Along with its auxiliary buildings it was the size of a new palace. The roof, covered with oak shingles, was probably carried on two internal rows of wooden pillars but has, of course, been replaced by Richard II’s magnificent hammer-beam single-span roof which can still be seen today. Built to impress, it was part of a larger building programme begun in 1096 including a wall to surround the White Tower to complete its enclosure on the north, and the repair or replacement of London Bridge which had been damaged by floods.

The Hall was begun in 1097 and was completed two years later. Tradition has it that William himself had some architectural input, coming up with some impossibly grandiose designs. It was certainly a vanity project and a way of impressing on the minds of all who saw it the fact and power of his kingship. Again it may be that his deep need to outdo the reputation of his father made him pursue this grand design. In the books on this website, William Rufus is consistently portrayed as a man always trying to measure his accomplishments against the magnificent triumphs of a dominating father.

According to one story, when the King first inspected the Hall, one of his attendants remarked that it was much larger than needed. The King replied that the Hall was not half large enough, and that it was a mere bedchamber when compared to what he had in mind. 

But the Hall was impressively vast and William wanted to impress. Measuring 73 by 20 metres (240 by 67 feet), it had a floor area covering 1,547 square metres (about 17,000 square feet), with a length of almost four cricket pitches end-to-end. Indeed the Hall was so large that other halls were needed at Westminster for normal use, and the royal household usually ate in a smaller hall nearby.

The great mystery about the Hall is the form of its original roof. Not until the 13th or 14th century could carpenters create roofs significantly wider than the length of the available timber, and so it was assumed that a single or double row of columns was needed to support the Hall’s roof.However, recent archaeological explorations found no evidence of these, and that the roof may have been self-supporting from the beginning. How it was done is still a matter for conjecture.

The Hall was enclosed with stone walls fully two metres, or six feet thick; these largely remain today, though heightened and refaced.Inside the Hall was an arcade with large arches and windows and a wall passage around all four sides. Above the windows was a chequer-work pattern of light and dark stones.

The inside walls were plastered and painted, and decorative hangings were draped from the arcade.