A carefully conserved St Stephen’s Porch now forms the setting of New Dawn, a permanent artwork designed by artist Mary Branson to commemorate women’s suffrage in Parliament.
- Sector
- Public
- Tags
- Grade I
- Service
- Conservation architecture
St Stephen’s Hall was originally built as the Royal Chapel of St Stephen’s, a two-story structure commissioned by Henry III and completed in 1297, later serving as the House of Commons. Its structure survived the 1834 fire and the Hall was later remodelled by Sir Charles Barry during the construction of the present Palace of Westminster.
New Dawn occupies a space above the entrance to St Stephen’s Hall, originally intended for a wall painting depicting peace. New Dawn now occupies the space intended for peace, commemorating women’s suffrage in Parliament.
Donald Insall Associates also cleaned and repaired the masonry of St Stephen’s Porch and conserved the delicate parapet carvings, expanding upon the work of our Westminster Hall masonry conservation project and utilising similar methods. We have also restored the rare hand-embossed canvas wall covering, now behind New Dawn, which has been analysed and carefully repainted in ‘suffragette green’ as the projects ran in tandem.
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