More information : (TQ 30037993). 10 Downing Street. Comprises two houses, the larger one facing north to St James Park dating from the reign of Charles II and another constructed in 1682-3 facing street. They were combined in 1732-5. (1)
The first domestic house known to have been built on the site of Number 10 was leased to Thomas Knyvet, Member of Parliament for Thetford and Justice of the Peace for Westminster, who arrested Guy Fawkes for his part in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
The house was first leased to him in 1581 by Queen Elizabeth I. After Knyvet's death in 1622, the house passed to his wife, but she died only a few weeks after him. The house was left to their niece, Mrs. Hampden.
Mrs. Hampden lived in the house, now known as 'Hampden House', for forty years, a period that spanned the full duration of the Commonwealth and the early years of the restored Monarchy.
Downing Street is named after its creator, Sir George Downing. Developing the land around Hampden House was one of his profit-making schemes. In 1654 he had acquired the Crown interest in the land, but he could not take possession as it was under lease to Knyvet's descendents until 1682. After the Restoration Downing managed to retain his rights to the property, rather than allowing the 'Crown interest' to revert. In 1681 the King relaxed some of the restrictions on what Downing could build, and finally, in 1682, Downing secured the leases to the property.
Work began on 15 terraced houses along the northern side of what became Downing Street. The houses were of rather poor quality - with inadequate foundations given the boggy ground below. The apparently neat brick façade is misleading - the walls have now been tidied up - but initially mortar lines were drawn on to give the appearance of even spaced bricks. Number 10 started out life as Number 5, and was not renumbered until 1779. Numbering the houses on Downing Street was generally rather haphazard - they tended to be known by the name or title of their occupants. However, Downing's house is only half the story - literally - as the present day Number 10 is made up of two houses joined together: Downing's cheap terrace house at the front; and an altogether grander affair, over looking Horse Guards Parade, at the rear.
The house overlooking Horse Guards was built around 1677. It became the home of the Countess of Lichfield, daughter of Charles II, and as befitted her station, it was decidedly more impressive than the terrace behind. After the Lichfields left in 1690, the house passed on to Lord Overkirk - William III's Master of the Horse. Then in 1720, after the deaths of Lord Overkirk and his wife, 'Overkirk House' was renamed 'Bothmar House' after its new resident, Count Bothmar. Count Bothmor died in 1732 and the terrace on Downing Street and the house on Horse Guards began their association with the office of Prime Minister. The last private resident of Downing's terrace was a Mr. Chicken. He moved out in the early 1730's when King George II presented the house on Downing Street, and the house overlooking Horse Guards, to his Principal Minister Sir Robert Walpole.
Walpole, who is regarded as the first British Prime Minister, refused the property as a personal gift. Instead he asked the King to make it available to him, and future First Lords of the Treasury, in their official capacity. The King agreed, and to this day Prime Ministers occupy Number 10, not as the Prime Minister, but as the First Lord of the Treasury.
Walpole took up residence in 1735, three years after accepting the King's gift. During that time the architect William Kent had been hard at work linking the two houses - the one on Downing Street and the one overlooking Horse Guards - together. William Kent was a Palladian architect whom Walpole had already employed to improve Houghton House, his home in Norfolk. Kent carried out extensive work on the two houses in Downing Street. He connected them on two stories, built a large main staircase and created new grand rooms. The main entrance now faced onto Downing Street rather than towards Horse Guards.
Walpole resigned in February 1742 and left Downing Street that summer, but his tenure in the house did not immediately set a tradition that Prime Ministers (or First Lords) should live in Number 10. Walpole's immediate successors seemed to see the house as a perk of the job - one which they could hand over to fellow politicians, family and friends. It wasn't until 1763 that another Prime Minister, George Grenville, lived in Number 10, and after he left the house again played host to holders of other offices.
With successive residents, who often had large families and households, came a series of repairs and alterations. In 1766 a major series of repairs began, which lasted nearly eight years. The black and white chequer board floor in the entrance hall, the lamp above the door and the lion's head door knocker all date from around this time.
Towards the end of Lord North's occupation, work began again under architect Sir Robert Taylor on further repairs and the addition of a new vaulted kitchen next to the Treasury Green.
William Pitt, the Younger, moved into Downing Street for the first time in the early 1780s - he was one of the longest serving inhabitants, living there from 1783-1801 and from 1804-1806. He was asked to justify the £20,000 cost of Taylor's improvements to Parliament.
In 1796 the Cabinet Room as we know it today emerged. The room was extended by knocking a wall down and inserting columns to carry the extra span.
Pitt died, aged only 46, just as the nineteenth century and the next period in the life of Number 10 began.
The 1820s saw major building work begin again on Number 10. Frederick John Robinson, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, (who later became Viscount Goderich and Prime Minister) employed the leading architect John Soane to improve the house. Soane created the wood panelled State Dining Room and the Small Dining Room.
A number of Prime Ministers in the middle of the century, including Sir Robert Peel, Earl Derby and Lord Palmerston, lived in their own London town houses rather than Number 10. The tradition of the Prime Minister living at Number 10 was not firmly established until Arthur Balfour became Prime Minister in 1902.
10 Downing Street was modernised towards the end of the nineteenth century. Electric lighting was fitted in 1894 and the first telephones were installed around the same time.
Sir Philip Sasson, the First Commissioner of Works, oversaw a new programme of building work in the late 1930s. Central heating was installed in 1937 and work began on converting the labyrinth of rooms in the attic, which had formerly been used by servants, into a flat for the Prime Minister.
As war became more likely a number of precautions were taken. This included the addition of steel reinforcement in the Garden Rooms and heavy metal shutters being fixed over windows as protection from bombing raids.
During the Blitz, October 1940 to May 1941, the Cabinet met in the underground secret war rooms built in the basement of the Office of Works. The Churchills moved out of Downing Street and into the Number 10 Annex above the war rooms. All furniture and valuables were removed from Number 10 and only the Garden Rooms, Cabinet Room and Private Secretaries' office remained in use. To find out more about this period in the history of the building visit Downing Street in War.
From 1945-1950 redecoration work was carried out to repair war damage. The attic flat conversion was finished and the Attlees moved in. The flat included a sitting room, dining room, a study, and a number of bedrooms.
By the 1950s the state of the fabric of the building had reached crisis point. Bomb damage had exacerbated existing problems with structure - the building suffered from subsidence, sloping walls and twisting door frames and an increasing large annual repair bill.
The Ministry of Works carried out a survey in 1954 into the state of the structure. The report bounced from Winston Churchill to Anthony Eden to Harold Macmillan as one succeeded the other. Finally Macmillan set up a Committee to consider the report. The Committee concluded that drastic action was required before the building fell or burnt down.
They put forward a range of options including the complete demolition of Number 10, 11 and 12 and their replacement with a new building. That idea was rejected and instead it was decided that Number 12 should be rebuilt; Number 10 and 11 should be strengthened and their historic features preserved.
The architect Raymond Erith was selected to supervise the work. The work was expected to take two years and cost £500,000, in fact it missed the projected completion date by a year and cost double the original estimate. The delays and additional costs came about for a number of reasons not least because the foundations proved to be so rotten that concrete underpinning was required on a massive scale.
Number 10 was completely gutted during the building work. Walls, floors and even the columns in the Cabinet and Pillared rooms proved to be rotten and had to be replaced
Erith's work was completed in 1963, but not long afterwards dry rot became apparent and further repairs had to be undertaken.
Margaret Thatcher appointed architect Quinlan Terry to refurbish the state drawing rooms at the end of the 1980s. Two of the rooms, the White Drawing Room and Terracotta Room (or the Green Drawing Room as Terry styled it), gained highly embellished ceilings. In the White Drawing Room this included adding the national emblems of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. (2)
On 19 January 1908, Flora Drummond and other members of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) chained themselves to the railings outside No. 10 Downing Street. Four years later on 1st March 1912, the leader of the WSPU, Emmeline Pankhurst, and other WSPU members took a taxi to No. 10 Downing Street and broke four windows by throwing stones. They were arrested and sentenced to two months imprisonment.
The WSPU was the women's suffrage society who engaged in militant acts to draw attention to the campaign for women's right to vote. (3)
This article includes an image of a belt and harness that was used by suffragettes to chain themselves to the railings of No. 10 Downing Street. This object is held at the Museum of London. (4)
This is an image of the belt and harness used by suffragettes to chain themselves to railings. It is in the collection at the Museum of London and had ID no. MoL_61.186. To see the image, click on the link in the list of sources. (5)
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