Inigo Jones designed the building for James I after the earlier banqueting house burned in January 1619. Work ran from 1619 to 1622 and cost £15,618. The article calls the style classical and Palladian-influenced, the first such structure completed in England, though a footnote says the Queen's House of 1635 is often called the first consciously classical building.
The great hall is a double-cube room, 110 feet long, 55 feet wide and 55 feet high. The walls are Oxfordshire stone, the columns Purbeck stone and the foundations brick, and it was refaced in Portland stone in the 19th century.
The Rubens ceiling was installed in 1636. On January 30, 1649, Charles I stepped from a window onto a scaffold outside for his execution. The building is Grade I listed and cared for by Historic Royal Palaces.
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