William II ordered Westminster Hall built in 1097 beside the royal palace at Westminster, and it was completed around 1099. Its enormous interior provided a setting for feasts, assemblies, petitions, and royal display unmatched in England. The surviving stone walls preserve substantial Norman fabric, although their openings, surfaces, and adjoining structures changed repeatedly. The hall formed part of a much larger medieval palace rather than a freestanding civic building, and its ceremonial importance grew as royal government became increasingly concentrated at Westminster.

During Richard II’s reign, masons heightened the walls and carpenter Hugh Herland created the great hammer-beam roof, completed in the 1390s. The span avoided rows of internal supports, combining structural daring with carved angels and royal imagery. This roof, not the original Norman covering, defines the present interior. Kings held coronation banquets in the hall, and shops and legal offices crowded its edges. England’s central courts developed around and within it, making Westminster Hall a workplace of justice as well as spectacle.

Major state trials included those of Thomas More, Guy Fawkes and other Gunpowder Plot defendants, Charles I, and Warren Hastings. Courts remained associated with the hall until the nineteenth century. Coronation banquets continued through George IV in 1821, after which ceremonial practice changed. The fire of 1834 destroyed much of the old Palace of Westminster, but determined firefighting saved the hall. Charles Barry’s new parliamentary palace then incorporated it, adding vestibules and altering its architectural surroundings.

Restorers repaired the roof and masonry in several campaigns, replacing decayed timber where necessary while retaining medieval members. During the Second World War, incendiary attack on 10–11 May 1941 set the nearby Commons chamber ablaze; firefighters again protected Westminster Hall. Modern conservation has addressed roof loading, carved angels, stonework, fire safety, heating, and access. Visitors therefore see authentic Norman walls and extensive medieval roof fabric supported by centuries of careful repair, not an interior untouched since Richard II.

Westminster Hall remains part of the working parliamentary estate. It has hosted lying-in-state ceremonies, major anniversaries, judicial occasions, and addresses by distinguished visitors, while access depends on Parliament’s security and program. The hall’s meaning comes from continuous public use across monarchy, law, Parliament, and national commemoration. Its historic layers should be kept distinct: an eleventh-century royal hall, a fourteenth-century roof and remodeling, nineteenth-century incorporation into the rebuilt palace, war damage and repair, and contemporary ceremonial adaptation all contribute to the surviving monument.