10 Downing Street

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2007)

10 Downing Street
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney stand in front of the famous main door to Number 10. Hundreds of pictures like this one have been taken of Prime Ministers greeting other world leaders.
Building information
Town	London
Country	England, United Kingdom
Coordinates	51°30′12″N 0°07′40″W / 51.503389, -0.127639Coordinates: 51°30′12″N 0°07′40″W / 51.503389, -0.127639

10 Downing Street is the residence and office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the headquarters of Her Majesty's Government. It is situated on Downing Street in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is actually the official residence of the First Lord of the Treasury, but in modern times this post has always been held simultaneously with the office of Prime Minister.

[edit] Overview

Number 10, as it is often known, is perhaps the most famous address in London and one of the most widely recognised houses in the world.

Situated in Westminster in London, Number 10 is the centre of the United Kingdom government, physically and politically. Not only is Number 10 the Prime Minister's (the "PM") home, it is also a place of work. It has offices for the PM, the secretaries, assistants and advisors, and numerous conference rooms and dining rooms where the PM meets with and "entertains" other leaders and foreign dignitaries. The building is near the Palace of Westminster, the home of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, and the residence of the Queen.

The building now known as Number Ten was originally three houses: the "house at the back", Number 10 itself, and a small house next to it. The "house at the back" was a mansion built sometime around 1530; the original Number 10 was a modest townhouse built in 1685.

George II presented the "house at the back" and the two Downing Street houses to Sir Robert Walpole as an official residence for the First Lord of the Treasury

In 1732 King George II offered 10 Downing Street and the "house at the back" to Robert Walpole (often called the first Prime Minister) in gratitude for his services to the nation. Walpole accepted only on the condition that they would be a gift to the office of First Lord of the Treasury rather than to himself personally. The King agreed and "ownership" has passed ever since to each incoming First Lord. Between 1732 and 1735, Walpole commissioned William Kent to join the houses together. It is this larger house that is known today as Number 10 Downing Street.

As generous as the gift may seem in hindsight, the arrangement was not an immediate success. Despite its impressive size and convenient location, Number 10 was not an attractive place to live. Partly, this was due to its poor construction on boggy soil and to chronic neglect in maintaining it. More importantly, Walpole set an example, not a rule, and the position of Prime Minister did not become an established part of the British constitution until early in the nineteenth century; it was not invariably linked to the office of First Lord of the Treasury until the twentieth. Some Prime Ministers lived there, many did not. Costly to maintain, neglected, and run-down, the house was close to being razed several times.

Nevertheless, Number 10 Downing Street survived and became linked with many of the great statesmen and events of recent British history, and the people came to appreciate its historic value. As Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said in 1985, Number Ten had become "one of the most precious jewels in the national heritage".

[edit] History of the building

[edit] The "house at the back" before 1733

The Palace of Whitehall by Hendrick Danckerts c. 1660-1679. The view is from the west with King Charles II in the foreground riding through St James's Park. The "house at the back" is on the far right; the octagonal building next to it is the Cockpit.

The "house at the back" was built around 1530 next to Whitehall Palace, the primary residence of monarchs at the time. It was one of several buildings that made up the "Cockpit Lodgings", so-called because they were attached to a cock-fighting ring, housed inside an unusual octagonal structure. Early in seventeenth century, it was converted to a concert hall and theatre but retained its old name. After the English Restoration, some of the first Cabinet meetings were secretly held in the Cockpit.

During Tudor times, the “house at the back” was the home of the Keeper of Whitehall Palace, responsible for maintaining the palace including the Cockpit. For many years, it was occupied by Thomas Knevett (or Knyvet), famous for capturing Guy Fawkes in 1605 and foiling his plot to assassinate James I. The previous year, Knevett vacated the house at the back and occupied a house next door, standing where Number Ten is today.

From this time, members of the royal family and government officials lived in the house at the back. In 1604, James I’s four-year-old son Prince Charles (the future Charles I) lived there briefly. After the property was extended to include the Little Close Tennis Court where Henry VIII played his favourite game, and a kitchen and rooms for domestic staff were built, eight-year-old Princess Elizabeth moved in. Elizabeth lived in the house at the back until 1613 when she married the Elector Palatine and moved to Hanover. There she became the grandmother of George, the Elector of Hanover, who became King of England in 1714, and the great-grandmother of King George II, who offered the house to Walpole in 1732. Thus over a period of one hundred years the house at the back symbolically links the English Houses of Stuart and Hanover.

Oliver Cromwell lived in the house at the back between 1650 and 1654; his widow, for a year in 1659. George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle, the general who made possible the Restoration of the monarchy, lived there from 1660 until his death in 1671. Albemarle was First Commissioner of the Great Treasury Commission of 1667-1672 that transformed royal accounting and allowed the Sovereign greater control over expenses. These measures also laid the foundations for the legal authority of the office of First Lord of the Treasury. The man thought to be most responsible for developing these measures was Albemarle's Secretary, Sir George Downing. Albemarle is the first person associated with the Treasury to live in what would eventually become the modern home of the First Lord of the Treasury and Prime Minister.

After Albemarle's death, the Prince of Orange, later William III of England, probably lived in the house at the back for a short time while visiting his uncle, Charles II. In the spring of 1671, George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, took possession when he became a leading member of the Cabal Ministry. Buckingham rebuilt most of it at considerable government expense. The result was a spectacular, spacious mansion, lying parallel to Whitehall Palace. From its secluded ornamental garden there was a full view of St. James's Park where deer grazed and noble men and women strolled on paths adorned with sculpture.

After Buckingham retired in 1676, Lady Charlotte Fitzroy, Charles II's illegitimate twelve-year-old daughter, moved in when she married the Earl of Lichfield, Master of the Horse. In preparation for the new tenant, the Crown authorized extensive rebuilding once again. This work included widening the garden and adding a storey, giving the house three main floors, plus an attic and basement. The resulting mansion, which became known as Litchfield House, can still be seen today as the rear section of Number Ten.

Why such extensive rebuilding was necessary is a puzzle. Possibly there was a fire, but the most likely explanation is that the house had settled, causing structural damage. Westminster was once a swamp and buildings in the area require deep foundation pilings to avoid structural damage from settling. At this time, the house at the back rested on a shallow foundation, a design error that would cause problems until 1960 when the modern Ten Downing Street was rebuilt on a foundation set on deep pilings.

Lady Litchfield and her family followed James II into exile after the Glorious Revolution. In 1690, the new monarchs, King William III and Queen Mary II, offered Litchfield House to Hendrik van Nassau-Ouwerkerk, a Dutch general and cousin of the King, who had assisted in securing the English crown for the then-Prince of Orange. Also Master of the Horse, Nassau, called "Lord Overkirk" by the English, lived in what came to be referred to as Overkirk House until his death in 1708.

Overkirk House reverted to the Crown upon Lady Overkirk's death in 1720, and the Treasury issued an order "for repairing and fitting it up in the best and most substantial manner" at a cost of £2,522, a very large sum at the time. The work included: "The Back passage into Downing street to be repaired and a new door; a New Necessary House to be made; To take down the Useless passage formerly made for the Maids of Honour to go into Downing Street, when the Queen lived at the Cockpit; To New Cast a great Lead Cistern & pipes and to lay the Water into the house & a new frame for ye Cistern."

These repairs completed, Johann Caspar von Bothmar, Count Bothmar, envoy from Hanover and advisor to George I and II, took up residency. Although Count Bothmar complained bitterly about "the ruinous Condition of the Premises", he lived there until his death in 1732.

[edit] The First Lord's house: 1733-1735

King George II wanted to give Ten Downing Street and "the house at the back" to Sir Robert Walpole (considered to be the first Prime Minister) as a personal gift for his services to the Crown. Walpole accepted only on the condition that the gift be to the office of First Lord of the Treasury rather than to himself personally.

When Count Bothmar died, ownership of the house at the back reverted to the Crown. George II took this opportunity to offer it to Sir Robert Walpole as a gift for his extraordinary services over the previous years. Coincidentally, the King had also obtained the leases on stables and two properties on Downing Street, one of which was Number Ten, and added these to his proposed gift.

Walpole did not want to accept the gift for himself. Shrewd and wealthy, he, perhaps, did not want to burden himself by adding to his extensive holdings. Or, perhaps, he knew the houses were built on soft soil and would be expensive to maintain. At the same time, he probably did not want to offend the King by refusing the gift outright. Whatever his motivations, Walpole proposed - and the King agreed - that the Crown give the properties to the Office of First Lord of the Treasury. Walpole would live there as the incumbent First Lord, but would vacate it for the next one.

The arrangement made, Walpole set about uniting the properties. Wanting to extend the new house as far as the passage to the east, Walpole persuaded Mr Chicken, the tenant of the small house next door, to move to another house in Downing Street. Mr Chicken's former residence, the stables and the house at the back were then incorporated into Number 10.

Walpole commissioned William Kent to join the structures. Kent's plan was a masterpiece. He joined the two larger houses by building a two-story structure on part of the space between them, consisting of a long room on the ground floor and several rooms above. The remaining space was converted into a courtyard. He then connected the Downing Street houses with a corridor, now called the Treasury Passage.

Having joined the houses, Kent then gutted them: tearing down walls, ripping up floors, removing staircases, and dismantling fireplaces. Craftsmen created a handsome stone triple staircase in the main section of the original Number Ten. With an iron balustrade embellished with a scroll design and mahogany handrail, it rose from the garden floor to the first floor. For over two hundred years, Kent's staircase was the first architectural feature visitors saw as they entered 10 Downing Street. Portraits of all the Prime Ministers from Sir Robert Walpole decorated the wall going up its side. In the 1960 restoration, Kent's staircase was moved to the back of the house and a new one with no visible supports was installed. The Prime Ministers' portraits still decorate the wall going up.

Kent left the house at the back with three floors of living space but surmounted its central section with a pediment. To allow Walpole quicker access to the House of Commons, he walled up its north side entrance from St. James's Park, and made the door on Downing Street the entrance to the new enlarged house.

The redesign and rebuilding took two years. On September 23, 1735, the London Daily Post announced that Walpole had moved into Number Ten: “Yesterday, the Right Hon. Sir Robert Walpole, with his Lady and Family moved from their House in St James’s Square, to his new House adjoining to the Treasury in St James’s Park.”

The Walpole family did not enter through the door that is now so famous. That would be installed forty years later. However, Kent's door was also modest, belying the spacious elegance beyond. The Walpole family's new, albeit temporary, home had sixty substantial rooms, decorated with hardwood and marble floors, crown moulding, elegant pillars and marble mantelpieces. Kent's sketches show seven main rooms on the ground floor and the first floor, all with beautiful views of either the garden or St. James's Park. The largest was made into a study for Walpole, measuring forty feet by twenty with enormous windows. The room was and still is magnificent; its impressive size is easily seen in many paintings and photographs. "My Lord's Study" (as Kent labelled it in his drawings) would later be famous as the Cabinet room where Prime Ministers meet with their subordinate ministers. A portrait of Walpole hangs over the fireplace behind the Prime Minister’s chair; it is the only picture in the room.[1]

After moving in, Walpole ordered that a portion of the land outside his study to be converted into a garden. Letters patent issued in April 1736 state that: "... a piece of garden ground situated in his Majesty's park of St. James's, & belonging & adjoining to the house now inhabited by the Right Honorable the Chancellor of His Majesty's Exchequer, hath been lately made & fitted up at the Charge … of the Crown". The same document confirmed that Number Ten Downing Street was: "meant to be annexed & united to the Office of his Majesty's Treasury & to be & to remain for the Use & Habitation of the first Commissioner of his Majesty's Treasury for the time being." Thus it was stated in writing that the First Lord of the Treasury had an official home.

[edit] "My vast, awkward house": 1735-1805

William Pitt the Younger lived in 10 Downing Street for nineteen years, longer than any other Prime Minister before or since. In a letter to his mother, Pitt called No 10 his "vast, awkward house".

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, 10 Downing Street was generally seen as a small, unimpressive, mediocre building that was far below the quality and standard possessed by leader peers. William Pitt lived in Number Ten Downing Street for more than nineteen years, longer than any other minister of the Crown, either before or after him. He lived there for three months as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1783, and then a total of nineteen years as Prime Minister from 1783 to 1802 and 1804 to 1806.

By the time Pitt moved into Downing Street, the exterior of the house looked much like it does today, due to extensive work done on it over a period of years beginning in 1766. At that time, Pitt's father was Prime Minister, but the house was occupied by Charles Townsend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Before moving in, Townsend pointed out that the house was in a dreadfully dilapidated condition and needed a great deal of repair. On his instructions, architects conducted a survey of Downing Street and the results were forwarded in a letter to the Treasury:

"... we have caused the House in Downing Street belonging to the Treasury to be surveyed, & find the Walls of the old part of the said House next the street to be much decayed, the Floors & Chimneys much sunk from the level & no party Wall between the House adjoining on the Westside ... We have therefore made a plan & Estimate for taking down the Front next the street & also the East Flank Wall of the Hall, to build a party Wall on the Westside to prevent danger of Fire, to repair the remaining part of the Old Building & to Erect an additional Building adjoining thereto. All which Works ... will Amount to the sum of Nine hundred & Fifty pounds."

It is surprising that such extensive repairs and rebuilding were necessary since it had only been thirty years since the three houses forming Number Ten had been completely reconstructed by Kent for Walpole. The letter suggests that the damage was caused by the ever-present, shallow foundations, especially the one under the house at the front built by Downing, which was by this time over eighty years old.

Townsend's reconstruction was begun almost immediately, and continued while he and his family occupied the house. But, inexplicably, it appears to have taken many years to complete. A note from Lord North to the Office of Works, dated September 1774, asks that the work on the front of the house, "which was begun by a Warrant from the Treasury dated August 9, 1766", should be finished.

The entrance from Downing Street was rebuilt during this period. Executed in the elegant Georgian style by the architect Kenton Couse, it was probably completed by 1772. Knowing the momentous discussions which had already taken place within the walls of the house, its facade was a masterpiece of English understatement. Unassuming and narrow, it consists of a single step made of white stone leading to a modest brick frontage. The small, six-panelled door, made of black oak, is surrounded by cream-coloured casing and adorned above with an attractive semicircular fanlight window. Painted in white in the centre of the door, between the top and middle sets of panels, is the number "10"; between the two middle panels is a black iron knocker in the shape of a lion's head; and just below the knocker is a brass letter box with the inscription "First Lord of the Treasury". A black ironwork fence with spiked newel posts runs along the front of the house and up each side of the step to the door. The fence rises above the step into a double-swirled archway, supporting an iron gas lamp surmounted by a crown. Beyond the door, Couse installed in the entrance hall black and white marble tiles, still in use. At the same time, he also added the large bow front to the small house on the Whitehall side, incorporated in Walpole's time.

Only seventeen years had elapsed since the very substantial alterations had been begun for the Townsends, but it had been left incomplete. At the end of August 1783, the Duke of Portland moved out of Downing Street because it was in need of repair. This new need for attention became apparent in 1781. In March of the following year a committee consisting of North and others after inspecting the condition of the house, found that the money spent so far was insufficient and considered a statement from the Board of Works, declaring that "the Repairs, Alterations & Additions at the Chancellor of the Exchequer's House will amount to the sum of £5,580, exclusive of the sum for which they already have His Majesty's Warrant. And praying a Warrant for the said sum of £5,580 - and also praying an Imprest of that sum to enable them to pay the Workmen."

This was just before Pitt moved into Downing Street as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The work was apparently still in progress when Pitt took up residence, which may explain his choice of words in a letter to his mother that he had, "settled ... in part of my vast, awkward house." It seems not to have been satisfactorily completed by the time Portland moved in, for on April 15th, 1783, a very few weeks before his first big dinner, it is recorded: "Mr Couse reported that having been directed to go over the House in Downing Street he had caused an Estimate to be made for sundry Works desired to be done by the Duchess of Portland."

But it was not until August that the repairs were begun. On August 8, "Sir William Chambers Recd a Letter from Mr Beirne, private secretary to the Duke of Portland, relative to Painting, &c, the House in Downing Street.". Later that month, it was announced in the press that, "The Duke of Portland is removed to Burlington House, where his Grace will reside while his house in Downing Street is repairing."

In addition to the repairs required, elaborate alterations were undertaken. The Cabinet Room, for example, was extended, giving it its modern appearance. This was achieved by removing the east wall and rebuilding it several feet inside the adjoining secretaries' room. The secretary's room became smaller with its fireplace out of centre. At the entrance to the Cabinet room a screen of coupled Corinthian columns (four in all) was erected. They supported a moulded entablature, which is continued round the room. Similarly, the large drawing room on the floor above - the corner room adjoining Kent's Treasury building, and looking out on to the Horse Guards Parade - was enlarged by replacing the south wall with a screen of two ionic columns. At the same time, the pediment on the Horse Guards front was removed and a plain parapet erected. Robert Taylor was the architect to whom this work was entrusted; he was knighted on its completion.

As quoted in Cleland's Memoirs of Pitt, "... the expense of repairing the house in Downing Street, in which he had the honour to be lodged for a few months . . . had but a year or two before he came into office, cost the public £10,000 and upwards; and for the seven years preceding that repair, the annual expenses had been little less than £500. The alterations that had cost £10,000 he stated to consist of a new kitchen and offices, extremely convenient, with several comfortable lodging rooms; and he observed, that a great part of the cost, he had understood, was occasioned by the foundations of the house proving bad."

Four days later, on June 21st, the Morning Herald commented: "£500 pounds p.a. preceding the Great Repair, and £11,000 the Great Repair itself! So much has this extraordinary edifice cost the country – for one moiety of the sum a much better dwelling might have been purchased."

[edit] "My Lone, Rambling House": 1806 - 1902

At this time a number of prominent Prime Ministers, notably the Duke of Wellington, chose to live in their rather more spacious and grand personal London residences, giving Number 10 over to be used by some more junior official. Between 1742 and 1780, only two Prime Ministers (Lord Grenville and Lord North) actually lived in Ten Downing Street. After 1834, no Prime Minister lived there until Benjamin Disraeli moved into it in 1877. Indeed, for thirty years, between 1847 and 1877, the residential area was vacant.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Prime Minister (1828-1830), for 7 months, refused to live in Number 10 because it was too small

It was Disraeli who renewed the association of Ten Downing Street with the First Lord of the Treasury. When he became Prime Minister, he at first saw no need to move into Number Ten. However, two years later during the Middle East crisis, Disraeli, seventy-two years old and crippled with gout, found it impossible any longer to walk even the short distance from Whitehall Gardens to Downing Street for the heated Cabinet discussions. He wrote to a friend that "I have been very ill and continue very ill, and am quite incapable of walking upstairs; gout and bronchitis have ended in asthma ... Sometimes I am obliged to sit up all night, and want of sleep at last breaks me down ... I have managed to attend every Cabinet, but I can't walk at present from Whitehall to Downing Street, but am obliged to brougham even that step, which I once could have repeated fifty times a day."

In November 1877, Disraeli took up his residence at Number 10, the first time it had been used as a Prime Minister's residence since Peel left it thirty years before. In anticipation that Disraeli might decide to move in, the upper rooms had been opened and aired, and the decorators had been called in several months before to prepare estimates. Their estimate for doing just the large drawing room, described as "The Reception Room for Lord Beaconsfield", alarmed the Treasury. The cost of painting the ceiling in a plain colour, for decorating the walls and inserting handsome paper in the panels, and picking out the cornice in tints and gold came in all to £782 for the one room. The cost of a new gate and tiles alone was £40. An immediate letter from the Treasury, dated November 21, 1876, stated:

My Lords trust that every effort will be made to confine the expenditure within narrow limits, as they should regret to see any greater outlay incurred than is absolutely essential for placing the room in a condition appropriate to the uses for which it is designed. Beyond this they could not consent to go, as it would injudicious to spend any large amount upon so old a house and one in which the approaches and other arrangements are so decidedly defective. They should hope that the Estimate now submitted might yet be found susceptible for reduction.

The final cost was discounted £200 off the original estimate. But then there was the question of furniture for the room. Disraeli insisted that the Treasury should purchase all the furniture required. He pointed out that this had been the practice next door at No. 11, the official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for a quarter of a century. Indeed, a quarrel between Disraeli and Gladstone more than twenty years before had brought about this change at No. 11. Previously, each new Chancellor of the Exchequer had been required to purchase the furniture from the outgoing tenant. Gladstone, on taking over from Disraeli in 1853, declined to do this, and asked the Board of Works to buy it instead - at least the furniture used for official business. Although Disraeli agreed in principle, he insisted that the old agreement "as between gentlemen" be observed for the present; the new arrangement would take effect with the next transfer. An acrimonious correspondence followed. On that occasion, Gladstone prevailed, and the furniture was purchased by the state. To prevent future disputes, a Treasury memo clearly defined the degree of responsibility of the outgoing and incoming tenant.

Disraeli and Queen Victoria.

Now the tables were turned, and it was Disraeli who prevailed. A practice similar to the one used for the tenant of No. 11 was now developed for the tenant of No. 10, the Prime Minister. A Treasury memo (dated May 30, 1878) defined as public places the entrance hall, staircase and first floor rooms (including the Cabinet room), and specified that these should be furnished at the state's expense. All other areas of the house were defined as private, and the furnishings in them purchased by the new Prime Minister through a process of debiting and crediting. When a new Prime Minister moved in, an inventory would be taken of the furniture already there, together with an estimate of its value. To this list would be added first the cost of any additional furniture requested by the new occupant; and, second the cost of repairs made to furniture during his occupancy. On leaving, the outgoing Prime Minister would then pay for wear and tear, determined by subtracting the value of the furniture at that time from the initial total.

This procedure was adhered to for almost twenty years, until November 1897. Since then, the state has maintained and renewed all furniture in No. 10, even in the residential rooms. Prime Ministers bring only their own personal items.

Having won the argument over who should pay to furnish the newly decorated main reception room, Disraeli spent the state's money lavishly on it. He selected an eighteen-piece silk upholstered suite of furniture - two sofas, four easy chairs, four high-backed chairs and eight small chairs - at a cost of £286 10s, together with matching silk curtains with cornices and valances for £145, three tables for £122, and two fine Axminster Persian carpets, a large one for the room itself and another for the hallway for £178. He also had carpenters install a partial three-foot parquet floor as decoration around the room for £50. Once again, the house became the Prime Minister's residence, and to commemorate the event, the Queen sent Disraeli bowls of primroses, his favourite flower, from her spring garden at Windsor.

But after thirty years of use as an office, Downing Street was in a sad state of disrepair. Some rooms were dilapidated, and Disraeli's private apartment was inadequate and in need of modernization. Disraeli quickly found that much more would need to be done to make the old place a home again, as it had been for the Younger Pitt and Peel. In August 1878, the Office of Works made a completed a new estimate and forwarded it to the Treasury requesting the expenditure of an additional £2,350 for installing hot and cold running water in Disraeli's dressing room, creating and furnishing a new drawing room, repairing the staircase and the Prime Minister's official room, bedroom and ante-room, and "painting, cleansing, (and) whitewashing" various offices. For another £30, Disraeli also purchased from Mr Richard Evens a brass candle chandelier for the drawing room to match the one already there.

During his last period in office, in 1881, William Gladstone, who was both Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister at the same time, claimed residence in all of numbers 10, 11 and 12 for himself and his family.

Lord Salisbury, Prime Minister at the very beginning of the twentieth century, was the last Prime Minister not to be the First Lord of the Treasury.

[edit] A Precious Jewel: 1902-present

William Ewart Gladstone, Prime Minister, 1868-1874, 1880-1885, 1886, 1892-1894

Until the early 20th century, ministers of the Crown received only minimal pay and were expected to subsidize themselves through their own private wealth. Accordingly, numbers 10 and 11 were arranged as townhouses in which government ministers lived with their own servants. But when he became Prime Minister in the early 1920s, the first Labour Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, lacking the wealth of former 'grandee' Prime Ministers, found himself moving into an almost unfurnished house, surrounded by household staff he could not afford, some of whom even earned more than he did.

By the 1940s, economic and social changes led to major change in the use of 10 Downing Street. Instead of being a large residence run by servants, it became a working office, with the Prime Minister and his office relegated to a small flat created from the old servants' rooms at the top. The cramped nature of this flat and its location above what is now a busy office-complex, has led some Prime Ministers to live elsewhere. Some 19th and 20th century Prime Ministers owned larger and more impressive townhouses with servants and in reality lived in them. Harold Wilson lived in his own private home in Lord North Street during his second term as Prime Minister in 1974-76, but, with the assistance of the media, maintained the pretence of living at Number 10, secretly exiting by a side door to return to his real home after being photographed entering the front door. Other Prime Ministers lived in Admiralty House in the 1950s while Number 10 was undergoing rebuilding work, or in the 1990s following an IRA mortar attack.

Similarly, after the 1997 General Election in which Labour took power, a swap was carried out by the incoming holders of the two titles. Tony Blair was a married man with three children still living at home, whilst his counterpart, Gordon Brown, was unmarried at the time of taking up his post. Thus, although Number 10 continued to be the Prime Minister's official residence and contained the prime ministerial offices, Blair and his family actually lived in the more spacious Number 11, while Brown lived in the more meagre apartments of Number 10. After Brown married and the Blairs had their fourth child, Brown moved out to his own private flat nearby and the Blair family occupied both.

In reality, two and a half centuries of use as government residences has led to so much interlinking between the houses that it can be hard to know where one ends and the other one begins. The walls between not only the houses on Downing Street, but also the adjacent houses behind them on Horseguards Parade, have been knocked through and the buildings integrated.

In the 1950s, it became clear that No. 10 was in such a poor state of repair that it was in immediate danger of collapse. The pillars in the cabinet room that held the upper stories in place were themselves found to be held together by little more than two hundred years of layers of over painting and varnish, with the internal original wood having rotted away almost to dust. After considering demolishing the entire street, it was decided that, as occurred in the White House in the 1950s, the façade would be preserved while the interior would be gutted down to the foundations, and a copy of the original building erected using modern steel and concrete, over which furnishings of the original interior could be grafted. Much of this sensitive work was carried out by the architect Raymond Erith; his partner Quinlan Terry was later employed to redecorate some rooms in the 1980s.

When builders examined the exterior façade, they discovered that the black colour visible even in the first photographs from the mid-nineteenth century was misleading – the bricks were actually yellow, the black look being a product of two centuries of severe pollution. It was decided to preserve the 'traditional' look of more recent times, so the newly cleaned yellow bricks were then painted black to resemble their well-known appearance.

In a letter to Christopher Jones that he reproduced in his book No. 10 Downing Street, The Story of a House, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher summarised the feelings that she and many other British people have toward the house she lived in for eleven years from 1979 to 1990: “All Prime Ministers are intensely aware that, as tenants and stewards of No. 10 Downing Street, they have in their charge one of the most precious jewels in the nation's heritage."

[edit] The Prime Minister's Office

The Prime Minister’s office, for which the terms "Downing Street" and "No. 10" are synonymous, lies within 10 Downing Street and is headed by a Chief of Staff and staffed by a mix of career civil servants and special advisers. It provides the Prime Minister with support and advice on policy, communications with parliament, government departments and public/media relations.

The office was reorganised in 2001 into 3 directories:

• Policy and government
  Took over the functions of the Private office and policy unit. Prepares advice for the PM and coordinates development and implementation of policy across departments
• Communication and strategy, contains 3 units:
  • Press office: responsible for relations with the media
  • Strategic communications unit
  • Research and information unit: provides factual information to No. 10
• Government and political relations: Handles party/public relations

Changes were intended to strengthen the PM’s office. However, some commentators have suggested that Blair’s reforms have created something similar to a ‘Prime Ministers' department.’ The reorganisation brought about the fusion of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Cabinet Office - a number of units within the Cabinet Office are directly responsible to the Prime Minister.

[edit] Security

Heavy security measures are present, if not always visible. A police officer traditionally stands outside the black front door of Number 10 — a door which has no keyhole on the outside; it can only be opened from the inside. A second police officer is on permanent duty on the other side of the front door, so there is always someone there to open it for the Prime Minister. Gates were installed at both ends of the street during the premiership of Margaret Thatcher. People are still allowed access to the street, providing prior security checks are run and they adhere to certain protocol.^{[citation needed]} The gated entrance holds a box where several uniformed heavily armed police stand guard. The Metropolitan Police Service's DPG (Diplomatic Protection Group) provides protection for ministers in London, acting on the Security Service's intelligence.

More covert security measures exist, for example plain-clothed armed police along the roofline of the street and in the vicinity of Whitehall itself. A bunker linked to other government/transport amenities has been suggested to exist under the street.^{[citation needed]}

The most serious breach of security occurred on February 7, 1991, when the Provisional IRA used a white van parked in Whitehall to launch a mortar shell. This exploded in the back garden of 10 Downing Street, blowing in all the windows of the cabinet room while then-Prime Minister John Major was leading a session of the Cabinet. Major moved to Admiralty House while repairs were completed.

[edit] Residents of Ten Downing Street and The House at the Back (1650-present)

Prime Ministers are indicated in bold.

[edit] Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office

Main article: Chief mouser to the cabinet office

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• No. 10 Downing Street: 1660-1900, Hector Bolitho, Hutchinson, 1957.
• No 10 Downing Street: The Story of a House, Christopher Jones, The Leisure Circle, 1985.
• No. 10 Downing Street: A House in History, R.J. Minney, Little, Brown and Company, 1963.

[edit] See also

• Chequers - the Prime Minister's official country residence
• Sybil - a cat employed as a mouser at 10 Downing Street
• 24 Sussex Drive - the Canadian equivalent
• 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue - the U.S. equivalent

[edit] External links

• Official website
  • Prime Ministers in History
  • History of the building
  • Virtual Tour of 10 Downing Street
• 10 Downing Street section from the Survey of London