On the Scent of Democracy

Accompany Rich Bunn as he goes on possible the strangest ever tour conducted at the UK Houses of Parliament: a SMELL tour, through the main scents of the Palace of Westminster.

Transcript

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On the scent of democracy. Westminster Hall has a very particular scent. It's the smell, I think, of limestone and ancient wood. Although it's such a large room that it's only noticeable when you step into the corners. And I suspect that that's not what most normal visitors are doing. This is Unseen Parliament. Stories from inside the Palace of Westminster. I'm Rich Bunn. One of the things I always notice in Westminster Palace is how many fireplaces there are. In the winter, at least, Parliament must have mostly smelt of bonfires, and possibly tobacco. In the House of Lords, you can still see dents in the wood panelling where some of the peers knocked out their pipes. But smoking was banned in the House of Commons chamber as early as 1693. Hence the popularity of snuff, which believe it or not, the doorkeepers of the House of Commons still make. Not that I imagine there's a lot of call for it. Of course the fireplaces are unused now, and that's part of the suite of problems that the building's pattern of increasing modern occupancy is causing. If you're looking for it, you can smell the evidence. Go up the stairs from the chamber, and soon you'll be wandering through a couple of corridors that smell either like damp, as people over insulate what would have once been quite drafty rooms, or have the faint smell of burning dust, as the occupants plug in lots of retrofit high wattage heaters, which often overload the antiquated wiring. But if I've continued walking from Westminster Hall, then by now I'm in central lobby, which on a quiet day doesn't smell of much at all. This is supposedly deliberate, and it's supposed to act as a sort of chimney. It was also supposed to help with smell by drawing stale air out of the building and expelling it through the spire. Unfortunately, the system, designed by a man called Dr. David Boswell Reed, official role ventilator to the House of Commons, which I happen to think is an amazing job title, the system only half worked. It was reported by MPs when they reoccupied the chamber in the 1850s that it was good at the drawing in smells bit, and less good at the expelling bit, and that they could smell cooking from the speaker's kitchen and horses from the speaker's yard. From central lobby is a door, a door that you can only access with a staff pass that will take you down some backstairs. And these to me are obviously stairs once used by servants, for they're much smaller, stonier, and threadbare than those of the main corridor. And at the base of these stairs, it smells like stale beer. For this is the location of the wool sack, basically the last pub in which house staff can still privately drink. At the base of the stairs from one direction, down an alleyway from another, and behind the bins, being in there always used to give me the vaguest sense of doing something illicit. Out and past the fairly stinky refuse bins, where occasionally you'll see some very odd things indeed. January, for example, is a good month for that, as hundreds of Christmas trees appear all sizes, anything from one to ten metres, temporarily turning this little space into a fairy tale forest. On a general election day, it's something closer to a car boot cell, but let's not get into that now. A few more steps and we've gone back onto the main route and stepped back into the building and into the terrace cafeteria. It's kind of like a canteen from a boarding school, and whilst it's quite a nice room, it tends to smell, if I'm honest, rather like boiled cabbage and Paxo stuffing. But there's always the option to sit outside, right on the River Thames. Other than the occasional waft of diesel, the Thames to me doesn't really smell of much. Parliament is, of course, intricately linked to it, and once too the smell was much, much worse. Most people know about the Great Stink of 1858, which was the culmination of a doubling of London's population in around about 10 years, and the weeks of 30-degree weather during which Parliament voted to build a new sewer system. What people don't often realise is that the palace itself wasn't connected to that sewer system until the 1880s. Now, if we were to walk on to Big Ben, it would smell mostly of fresh paint and cement, having had a very big renovation. But in 1882, it functioned like a stink pipe, London's largest vent, for the cesspit behind Parliament. And if that isn't a worthy metaphor, I don't really know what is. Thanks so much for listening through to the end. I'm Rich Bunn, and if you've enjoyed this podcast, please think about subscribing or sharing with a friend. They're published every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye.