The only major surviving part of the old Palace of Whitehall, the Banqueting House stands on Whitehall in central London, a refined classical building among the government offices of the surrounding street. It was the grandest room of what was once the largest palace in Europe. It was designed by the architect Inigo Jones and completed in 1622 for King James I. Jones had studied in Italy, and the building introduced the disciplined Palladian classicism of the Renaissance to England, in marked contrast to the older Tudor styles around it. The interior is dominated by a single great hall, a double-cube room used for court ceremonies, feasts and the elaborate masques that were a feature of early Stuart court life. Its proportions and restrained decoration were highly influential on later English architecture. Its most famous feature is the ceiling, a series of large canvases painted by Peter Paul Rubens and installed in 1636. Commissioned by Charles I, they glorify the reign of his father James I and are among the few of Rubens's ceiling paintings to remain in their original setting. The building is also remembered for a single dramatic event: in 1649, after the Civil War, Charles I was led through the hall and executed on a scaffold outside, a moment that gives the place a particular weight in English history. The rest of the sprawling Palace of Whitehall was destroyed by fire in 1698, leaving the Banqueting House standing alone, which is why it now appears as an isolated classical structure on the street. Today it is open to visitors and also hired for events, with the Rubens ceiling the centrepiece of any visit, best appreciated from the floor of the great hall below. As both an architectural landmark and the site of a king's death, it occupies an unusual place among London's historic buildings.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Whitehall, London, United Kingdom