The next great line is that of the royal approach. The royal carriage drives under the great Victoria tower, and the sovereign ascending the royal staircase enters the robing room, and thence emerges into the “royal gallery,” a room one hundred and ten feet long, forty-five in width, and forty-five in height, with panelled ceiling. This gallery is open to the public at the opening and prorogation of Parliament, and was intended to be the entrance to the House of Peers. For the convenience of the peers an anteroom, the “Prince’s Chamber,” was added, through which the sovereign passes to the throne end of the House. Somewhat small in itself, and accordingly ornamented with small and delicate detail, it has been much injured by the large statue of Her Majesty, with the figures of Justice and Mercy flanking her throne, designed by John Gibson, Esq., R.A., and placed in this chamber. The two Houses are approached, either from the central hall, or by private entrances for the members. The private entrance to the House of Peers is in the centre of the Old Palace Yard front, and there is another from the south-western angle of St. Stephen’s Hall. The entrances to the House of Commons are by the Star Chamber and Cloister Courts, and by an archway on the western side of Westminster Hall. Each House has its lobbies, corridors, and refreshment rooms, with ready access to its committee-rooms and libraries. The two Houses themselves are of very different character. The House of Peers, as being, not only one chamber of the legislature, but the presence chamber of the sovereign, is of considerable size (ninety feet in length, forty-five in width, and forty-five in height), and decorated with lavish magnificence. The House of Commons, not presenting the same characteristics, is smaller in size (seventy-five feet in length, forty-five feet in width, and forty-one feet to the central line of the ceiling), while it provides much larger accommodation in the galleries and lobbies, and its decoration, though careful and elaborate, is less magnificent in character. The official residences are, of course, grouped round the Houses to which they are appendages. The offices of the Lord Great Chamberlain are on the south front, the residences of the Usher of the Black Rod, and Librarian of the House of Peers, at the south end of the river front, and that of the Serjeant-at-arms on the Old Palace Yard front. At the north end of the river front we have the Speaker’s house, and the houses of the Serjeant-at-arms, the Librarian and the Chief Clerk on the north front and the front to New Palace Yard.