This paper examines the important but obscure late Georgian architectural history of the Palace of Westminster and attempts to put architectural developments in their historical contexts in order to gain insight into the dynamic relationship between public architecture, public policy and the public perception of the nation and its values. The substantial but lost work of the architects Sir John Soane and James Wyatt at the Palace form the core of the study. From this perspective, the design competition of 1835–6 was not the beginning but the culmination of four decades of intense struggle over the form and meaning of architectural interventions at the Palace.