The construction history of the Parliament Buildings reads like a lesson in Caribbean patience. After Grant tabled his motion in 1857, a Public Buildings Erection Committee was formed. The committee's ambitions were expansive: the buildings would house not only Parliament but also the Custom House, the Marshal's Office, the Post Office, and the Prothonotary's Office. John F. Bourne, the Superintendent of Public Works, designed two neo-Gothic structures in coral limestone, their pointed arches and ornamental details echoing the Victorian Gothic that was fashionable in Britain at the time. A fire in 1860 cleared land for an even better site, and construction of the west wing began. Benjamin L. Harris won the tender at 13,750 pounds and completed the building in late 1871. The east wing went to a different builder, Richard F. Roberts, who undercut Harris with a bid of 11,750 pounds. Roberts delivered the east wing two years later. The two buildings flank a courtyard enclosed by green cast-iron railings manufactured by the British firm Messrs Andrew Handyside & Co. Ltd.

The most memorable feature of the Parliament Buildings is a cautionary tale about Caribbean geology. The original clock tower was attached to the east wing, where the Senate and House of Assembly chambers are located. Within a decade of construction, poor soil conditions had destabilized the tower's foundation, and it began to sink. By 1884, it had dropped ten feet into the ground -- a spectacular structural failure that forced its dismantling. A new clock tower was built on the west wing, where firmer ground could support the weight, and it stands there today. The clock itself was designed and manufactured by John Moore & Sons of Great Britain in 1875, engineered to run for eight days and to keep operating even while being wound. In 2010, Tropical Storm Tomas damaged the mechanism, freezing the hands at 2:12. Smith of Derby Group in England was contracted for the restoration. The four-faced clock remains visible from multiple vantage points around Bridgetown, with the Barbadian flag flying from the tower above it.

The interior details of the Parliament Buildings carry centuries of political and colonial history in their ornamentation. The stained glass windows in the House of Assembly chamber depict British sovereigns from James I to Queen Victoria, a visual timeline of the imperial power under which Barbadian democracy evolved. The Senate windows display the armorial bearings of past presidents of the council and past speakers of the House. In 1986, the House of Assembly chamber underwent a comprehensive renovation that stripped the plastered walls to reveal the natural sawn Barbadian limestone beneath and installed new furniture crafted exclusively from Barbadian mahogany. The original gas chandeliers, purely decorative since electrification, were preserved in place. On the main stairways of the west wing, two stained glass windows bear the Biblical injunction "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's" -- an apt motto for a building that has spent its existence mediating between local governance and larger powers.

The buildings were officially renamed from the Public Buildings to the Parliament Buildings by Act of Parliament in 1989, a symbolic assertion of legislative identity. In 2011, UNESCO designated both structures as protected properties within the World Heritage Site of Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison. The west wing was refurbished in 2006 to mark forty years of Barbadian independence, adding a National Heroes Gallery and a Museum of Parliament. Each November and December, the buildings are illuminated -- first in the blue and gold of the national flag, then in red and green for Christmas -- becoming a centerpiece of Bridgetown's annual lighting ceremony. Since 2020, Parliament has been meeting in rented spaces around the island while the historic buildings undergo further work, a temporary displacement that echoes, with some irony, the centuries of itinerant governance that preceded the buildings' construction. The Parliament that once met in taverns is, for now, meeting in conference centers.