Houses of Parliament

The Palace of Westminster hires rooms in both Houses, and the list is longer than most people expect. Ten spaces are offered on the Commons side alone, from the Members' Dining Room at 170 for dinner down to a fourteen-cover room off the Terrace, with the House of Lords running its own set around the Cholmondeley Room.

The rooms are the ones Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin built after the fire of 1834, and they have been left as they were: encaustic tiles, linenfold panelling, gilt portcullis motifs, Pugin's own wallpapers. The Members' Dining Room is the largest, taking 200 for a reception or 170 at table, with drinks served next door in the Strangers' Dining Room beforehand. The Churchill Room seats 100. The Pugin Room, above Speaker's Court, is the small one at eighteen.

What the Palace has that nothing else in London does is the Terrace. It runs the length of the river frontage between Westminster and Lambeth bridges, and the Terrace Pavilion on it takes 200 standing with the water directly below and Lambeth Palace opposite. Three Terrace Dining Rooms sit behind it for smaller parties, and the Thames Pavilion is used for the drinks that precede them.

Access is by security screening and most bookings are sponsored from inside the House, though a third-party hire route runs without a Member sponsor. The Attlee Suite, the one modern room on the list, sits across the road in Portcullis House and takes 150.