This thesis concerns Parliament Square in the City of Westminster, London. It is situated to the west of the Houses of Parliament (or New Palace at Westminster) and to the north of St. Margaret’s Church and Westminster Abbey. This urban space was first cleared at the start of the nineteenth-century and became a “square” in the 1860s according to designs by Edward Middleton Barry (1830-80). It was replanned by George Grey Wornum (1888-1957) in association with the Festival of Britain (1951). In 1998 Norman Foster and Partners drew up an (as yet) unrealised scheme to pedestrianise the south side closest to the Abbey