Banqueting House

This is the only surviving part of the Tudor Whitehall Palace, which once stretched most of the way down Whitehall and burned down in 1698. It was designed as England’s first purely Renaissance building by Inigo Jones after he returned from Italy, and looked like no other structure in the country at the time. Apparently, the English hated it for more than a century. A bust outside commemorates 30 January 1649 when Charles I, accused of treason by Cromwell after the Civil War, was executed on a scaffold built against a 1st-floor window here. When the monarchy was reinstated with Charles II, it inevitably became something of a royalist shrine. In a huge, virtually unfurnished hall on the 1st floor there are nine ceiling panels painted by Rubens in 1635. They were commissioned by Charles I and depict the ‘divine right’ of kings. It is still occasionally used for state banquets and concerts, but fortunately you don’t have to be on the royal A-list to visit, though if the house is rented for an event it will be closed to the public, so phone in advance to check. Book in advance for disabled access.