downing street tour

The Ultimate Guide to visiting 10 Downing Street

10 downing street ultimate guide.

It has one of the most famous addresses in the world and the most photographed door in England, yet many don’t even bother including 10 Downing Street in their London travel because they can’t even get close to it. But even though you can’t even step inside 10 Downing Street, let alone walk down Downing Street, just snapping a photo of the iconic front black door is a tourist activity in itself.

10 Downing Street is essentially London’s White House, and has been the official address for British prime ministers since 1735. The first residential home which was built on the site of 10 Downing Street was constructed by Sir Thomas Knyvett in 1581; (who was perhaps best known for arresting Guy Fawkes after the gunpowder plot). Some of the many famous political figures who once lived and/or worked at 10 Downing Street include Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, Pitt the Younger, Robert Walpole, Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone and David Lloyd George.

Both the first and second world wars were directed from inside 10 Downing Street, and some of the many key decisions related to the British Empire were developed here as well; (such as the building of the British nuclear bomb, the Great Depression, and many more).

10 Downing Street also stretches all the way to 12 Downing Street (because of its interconnected corridors and buildings which make up much of the street), and many important world leaders visit 10 Downing Street throughout the year whenever the British prime minister hosts a reception or charitable event.

10 Downing Street Highlights

10 Downing Street’s front door is said to be the most photographed front door in all of Britain, and can only be seen when looking through the gates from Whitehall; (where you can see the single white stone step and the black steel door with the number “10” on it). The door was originally made of oak, but was replaced with blast-proof material in 1991 after an IRA bomb exploded in the nearby garden.

For those with good eyesight and/or a camera with a good zoom, you should be able to see the front door’s black iron knocker (in the shape of a lion’s head) as well as the brass letter box with the “First Lord of the Treasury” inscription.

The iconic black bricks of the house are also famous (although they are actually yellow underneath). They were blackened by the London smog during the 19th century, and as a result were painted black during the 1960s since people were accustomed to seeing them that way.

Inside 10 Downing Street is a treasure trove of architectural delights that very few people get to see (unless you’re famous, or a royal, of course). Its main staircase is perhaps one of the most famous highlights of the house, as the walls along the staircase are lined with portraits of past British prime ministers.

Special Tips

Getting There

Visiting 10 downing street.

Unfortunately for tourists, 10 Downing Street (as well as the majority of Downing Street itself) is blocked off by a black gate and heavily patrolled by police at all times. (However, visitors can now take a look at the inside of 10 Downing Street by taking a 360-degree virtual tour on 10 Downing Street’s official website).

If you’re lucky enough, you might even be able to see the Prime Minister leaving or entering the residence in his armed car. You’ll know if the prime minister is en route to or from Downing Street because there is normally a flurry of activity with lots of people and police officers standing around (and possibly even some photographers too). But don’t let the flurry of activity deceive you, because the prime minister may be leaving or entering the residence when there is no one around at all!

The closest you can get to 10 Downing Street would be to stand on the edge of the street next to the FCO building (near the Captain James Cook statue) and peer through the black barriers. In your view you should be able to see 10 and 11 Downing Street, as well as a group of armed forces with machine guns standing near the famous black door.

Ticket prices and Opening Hours

Unfortunately for tourists, 10 Downing Street is not open to the public. As a matter of fact, you can’t even walk up to the residence, let alone walk down Downing Street.

However, if you’re hoping to see the prime minister enter or leave the residence, check to see if the gates are open. In that case, you may be able to catch a glimpse of the Prime Minister from far away, or even snap a photo through the high iron gates at the end of Downing Street.

Your best chances of seeing any kind of activity on Downing Street would be on a Thursday morning, which is when the cabinet meets the prime minister every week. The prime minister usually leaves for Parliament between 11 and 11:30 a.m. every Wednesday as well.

Although there’s no telling when the cabinet minister and/or prime minister will enter or leave the building, your chances of spotting them will be higher during weekday mornings, rather than at night, or on the weekends.

If you are checking out Downing Street you might also want to join any of the  free tours  that are available on offer.

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A Tour Inside 10 Downing Street

This post covers tours of 10 Downing Street.

We include information such as how to get there, the best times to go, as well as some virtual tours of the famous residence.

• Introduction
• Plan Your Visit
• Tours of 10 Downing Street
• Buckingham Palace
• Things to Do in London

INTRODUCTION

Number 10 Downing Street is one of the most famous addresses in the world. Since 1735, it has been home to the UK's prime ministers.

Although it’s hard to get a good look at the street due to security, Downing Street still remains as one of the most visited sites in our capital city. 

Should you want to visit this historic street to get a glimpse of the iconic black door of No. 10 Downing, check out our guided Westminster Tour  and our  London in a Day Tour , which both stop at Downing Street.

You can also try our GPS-enabled anytime audio tour  which includes a stop at Downing Street.

PLAN YOUR VISIT

How to Get Here

10 Downing Street is located in the City of Westminster, just a short walk away from the Palace of Westminster and Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey .  

Click  here to get exact directions from your point of departure. 

To reach 10 Downing Street by tube, it's best to reach it by either the Westminster or Charing Cross Station.  

If you need help figuring out which tube to take, make sure to read our posts covering the London Underground and which tube pass you should buy .

You can take bus #11 or a  hop-on, hop-off tour bus , both of which pass by frequently.

You can also reach it by boat with City Cruises from the Westminster City Pier which is very nearby.

For obvious safety reasons, the public is not allowed to walk on Downing Street, let alone go into the residence of the Prime Minister (PM).

There have been barriers erected along both sides of Downing Street since the 1920s. 

In 1974, it was suggested that permanent barriers should be erected to prevent the public from walking along the street.

However, the Prime Minister at the time, Harold Wilson, overturned the idea.

He felt that it was not right that the public should be prevented from walking down the street and taking photographs outside Number 10.

That has changed, and now security is very tight, as one would expect for the home of a country's head of government.

Today, the closest visitors can get is standing on the edge of the street to peer through the permanent black metal gates. 

See below for some tips on how to get the best view of the street and door .

Things to Do Nearby

There are plenty of other significant London sites within walking distance of Downing Street.

• Trafalgar Square
• Changing of the Guard
• Houses of Parliament
• Westminster Abbey
• The Churchill War Rooms
• The Horse Guards
• St. James’s Palace

Find some more ideas, read our post on  what to see in Royal London .

Many of these attractions have ticket prices attached to them for entry. Most are included in a number of tourist attraction discount passes available to you in London.

Read our post which compares these city passes to see if any are a good fit for you.

TOURS OF 10 DOWNING STREET

As noted above, you cannot walk on Downing Street as a member of the general public.

But, there are a few ways that you can see what the inside looks like, and also potentially glimpse the PM or cabinet members coming or going.

An Inside Look at 10 Downing Street

This video below made for the 2012 Olympics, gives you a good look into the public rooms inside 10 Downing Street.

Also, take a look at the  virtual tour of 10 Downing Street  on the UK Government's website.

Lastly, Google made this crystal-clear 360-degree virtual tour of some of the rooms in 10 Downing Street.

Outside 10 Downing Street

Here are some tips on how to get a good glimpse of the famous black door (and perhaps famous people as well).

(1) To get a quick photo-op of 10 Downing Street, you can take the #11 bus, and sit on the top deck of the doubledecker.

You may want to take a video from the bus since a still shot might be hard to capture while the bus is in motion.

(2) You can actually see 10 Downing Street while taking a ride on the London Eye ! 

(3) Make sure to go to the gates on Whitehall, which is where you will get your best pictures through the heavy security and barriers.

(4) To see any comings and goings of the PM and other government members, Thursday morning is the best time, as this is when the PM and Cabinet meeting. 

Also, Wednesdays between 11 and 11:30 a.m. are good since the PM leaves at this time to head to Parliament.

Larry, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office

Prime ministers come and go, but one resident of 10 Downing Street has no plans to leave any time soon.

Larry the cat, whose official title is Chief Mouser, has been living at 10 Downing Street since February 2011. He has now seen two PMs come and go.

He may be the most beloved resident of 10 Downing Street in the modern era and his activities are watched closely by the press and the adoring public. 

Here he is, on May 24, 2019, being escorted into the residence just minutes before Theresa May stood in front of the famous black door and announced her resignation.

HISTORY OF DOWNING STREET

Downing Street itself was built in the 1680s by Sir George Downing who had purchased a large tract of land near Parliament, on the edge of St. James’s Park .

He originally intended that the street should be full of fine townhouses designed specifically “for persons of good quality to inhabit in...”

When building these houses, Downing was assisted by master architect Sir Christopher Wren, who designed the buildings.

Most were actually built rather cheaply and were not of good quality – still the case when Winston Churchill resided at Number 10 and he is quoted as saying his house was “shaky and lightly built by the profiteering contractor whose name that bear.”

Earls, Lords, and Countesses quickly moved into the prime real estate built here although it seems unlikely that Sir Downing himself ever actually resided on the street that holds his name.

Regardless of this fact, a portrait of him still hangs in the entrance foyer of Number 10 Downing Street.

By the 1800s the houses had nearly all been taken over by the government.

Some of the original buildings were demolished to allow space to build and expand the Privy Council Office, the Board of Trade, and the Treasury Offices.

10 Downing Street

The majority of the UK's Prime Ministers, dating back to the very first, (Robert Walpole in 1720) have called Number 10 home.

The building itself is made up of over 100 hundred rooms – only part of which is actually residential.

There is a private residence on the third floor and a private kitchen in the basement.

Everything in between is offices, conference rooms, reception halls, sitting rooms, dining rooms, etc.

These rooms are all in constant usage - Foreign dignitaries are entertained here and the Prime Minister and his government base the majority of their work at Number 10.

The front door to Number 10 is most likely the most famous feature of the building.

Large, shiny, and black and bearing ‘10’ in large brass numbers, the door is most likely one of the most photographed in the world!

Originally, the door was made of Georgian black oak; it is today made of blast-proof steel and takes a reported eight men to lift it.

The original door can be seen by the public – it is on display in the Churchill Museum at the Cabinet War Rooms .

According to Margaret Thatcher, Number 10 Downing Street is “one of the most precious jewels in the national heritage.”

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• History of the UK Government

10 Downing Street

Introduction – by sir anthony seldon.

10 Downing Street, the locale of British prime ministers since 1735, vies with the White House as being the most important political building anywhere in the world in the modern era. Behind its black door have been taken the most important decisions affecting Britain for the last 275 years.

In the 20th century alone, the First and Second World Wars were directed from within it, as were the key decisions about the end of the empire, the building of the British nuclear bomb, the handling of economic crises from the Great Depression in 1929 to the great recession, and the building up of the welfare state.

Some of the most famous political figures of modern history have lived and worked in Number 10, including Robert Walpole, Pitt the Younger, Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone, David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.

Number 10 has 3 overlapping functions. It is the official residence of the British Prime Minister: it is their office, and it is also the place where the Prime Minister has entertained guests from Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to presidents of the United States and other world leaders. The Prime Minister hosts countless receptions and events for a whole range of British and overseas guests, with charitable receptions high up the list.

The building is much larger than it appears from its frontage. The hall with the chequered floor immediately behind the front door lets on to a warren of rooms and staircases. The house in Downing Street was joined to a more spacious and elegant building behind it in the early 18th century. Number 10 has also spread itself out to the left of the front door, and has taken over much of 12 Downing Street, which is accessed by a corridor that runs through 11 Downing Street – the official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Explore 10 Downing Street

Take a virtual tour inside 10 Downing Street and explore it’s most famous rooms and significant events at the Google Cultural Institute .

Origins and early inhabitants

The area around Downing Street was home to ancient Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Norman settlements, and was already a prestigious centre of government 1,000 years ago.

The Romans first came to Britain under the command of Julius Caesar in 55 BC. Making their capital at Londinium downriver, the Romans chose Thorney Island – a marshy piece of land lying between two branches of the river Tyburn that flowed from Hampstead Heath to the Thames – as the site for their early settlement.

These Roman settlements, and those of the Anglo-Saxons and Normans who supplanted them, were not very successful. The area was prone to plague and its inhabitants were very poor. A charter granted by the Mercian King Offa in the year 785 refers to “the terrible place called Thorney Island”. It took royal patronage to give the area prestige. King Canute (reigned 1017 to 1035) built a palace in the area, and Edward the Confessor (reigned 1042 to 1066) and William the Conqueror (reigned 1066 to 1087) maintained a royal presence there. The position of Westminster (as the area became known) as the centre of government and the church was solidified following the construction of the great abbey nearby, on Edward's orders.

Whitehall from St James’s Park – Hendrick Danckerts c.1675

The earliest building known to have stood on the site of Downing Street was the Axe brewery owned by the Abbey of Abingdon in the Middle Ages. By the early 1500s, it had fallen into disuse.

Henry VIII (reigned 1509 to 1547) developed Westminster's importance further by building an extravagant royal residence there.

Whitehall Palace was created when Henry VIII confiscated York House from Cardinal Wolsey in 1530 and extended the complex. Today's Downing Street is located on the edge of the Palace site.

The huge residence included tennis courts, a tiltyard for jousting, a bowling green, and a cockpit for bird fights. Stretching from St James's Park to the Thames, it was the official residence of Tudor and Stuart monarchs until it was destroyed by fire in 1698. It made the surrounding real estate some of the most important and valuable in London – and the natural home of power.

The first domestic house known to have been built on the site of Number 10 was a large building leased to Sir Thomas Knyvet in 1581 by Queen Elizabeth I (reigned 1558 to 1603). He was one of the Queen's favourites and was an MP for Thetford as well as a justice of the peace for Westminster. His claim to fame was the arrest of Guy Fawkes for his role in the gunpowder plot of 1605. He was knighted in 1604 by Elizabeth's successor, King James I (reigned 1603 to 1625), and the house was extended.

After the death of Sir Knyvet and his wife, the house passed to their niece, Elizabeth Hampden, who continued to live there for the next 40 years.

The middle of the 17th century was a period of political upheaval and Mrs Hampden's family was right in the middle of it. Her son, John Hampden, was one of the MPs who opposed King Charles I (reigned 1625 to 1649), and Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector, was Mrs Hampden's nephew.

Hampden House, as it was then known, gave Mrs Hampden a prime view of the tumultuous events during the Civil War and the Commonwealth and the early years of the Restoration.

The execution of Charles I in 1649 took place on a scaffold in front of Banqueting House in Whitehall, within earshot of the house. Mrs Hampden was still living there when King Charles II (reigned in Scotland from 1649 to 1685) was restored to the English throne in 1660.

The Parliamentary Commissioners, who took over Crown lands during the time of the Commonwealth, described the house in 1650:

Built part of Bricke and part with Tymber and Flemish qalle and covered with Tyle, consistinge of a Large and spacious hall, wainscoted round, well lighted, and Paved with brick Pavements, two parls wherof one is Wainscoted round from the seelinge to ye floor, one Buttery, one seller, one Large kitchen well paved with stone and well fitted and Joynted and well fitted with dresser boards. And above stayres in the first story one large and spacious dyneinge Roome, Wainscoted round from the seelinge to the floore, well flored, Lighted and seeled, and fitted with a faire Chimney with a foote pace of paynted Tyle in the same. Also 6 more Roomes and 3 Closetts in the same flore all well lighted and seeled. And in the second story 4 garretts…

The emergence of Downing Street

George Downing gave his name to the most famous street in the world. It is unfortunate that he was such an unpleasant man. Able as a diplomat and a government administrator, he was miserly and at times brutal.

However, George Downing was responsible for the street, its name and the building we know today. A former diplomat at The Hague serving the Commonwealth, he changed allegiance with finesse. He traded enough secrets to gain a royal pardon in March 1660 and, by the Restoration in May 1660, to be rewarded with a knighthood.

Interested in power and money, he saw an opportunity to make his fortune in property. He had already gained the Crown interest in the land around Hampden House, but could not take possession as it was under lease to Knyvet's descendants. In 1682 he secured the leases to the property and employed Sir Christopher Wren to design the houses.

Between 1682 and 1684, existing properties were pulled down and in their place a cul-de-sac of 15 to 20 terraced houses was built along the north side of the new street, Downing Street. In order to maximise profit, the houses were cheaply built, with poor foundations for the boggy ground. Instead of neat brick façades, they had mortar lines drawn on to give the appearance of evenly spaced bricks. In the 20th Century, Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote that Number 10 was:

Shaky and lightly built by the profiteering contractor whose name they bear.

A rather important neighbour complained, however. The new houses were built directly behind a large and impressive house overlooking Horse Guards. Its occupier, the Countess of Lichfield, daughter of Charles II, was less than pleased with the emergence of the unwelcome terrace behind. She complained to her father, who wrote back with advice:

I think that it is a very reasonable thing that other houses should not look into your house without your permission, and this note will be sufficient for Mr Surveyor to build up your wall as high as you please.

The original numbering of the Downing Street houses was completely different from what we see today. The sequence of numbers was haphazard, and the houses tended to be known by the name or title of their occupants. The current Number 10 started out life as Number 5, and was not renumbered until 1779.

The Downing Street house had several distinguished residents. The Countess of Yarmouth lived at Number 10 between 1688 and 1689, and was followed by Lord Lansdowne from 1692 to 1696 and the Earl of Grantham from 1699 to 1703. The last private resident of Downing's terrace was one Mr Chicken. Little is known about him except that he moved out in the early 1730s.

King George II presented both the house on Downing Street and the house overlooking Horse Guards to Sir Robert Walpole, who held the title First Lord of the Treasury and effectively served as the first Prime Minister. Walpole refused the property as a personal gift. Instead, he asked the king to make it available as an official residence to him and to future First Lords of the Treasury – starting the tradition that continues today. The brass letterbox on the black front door is still engraved with this title.

Walpole took up residence on 22 September 1735, once the townhouse on Downing Street and the house overlooking Horse Guards had been joined together and completely refurbished. Walpole employed architect William Kent – who had already worked on Walpole's Norfolk home, Houghton Hall – to undertake the work.

Kent carried out extensive work on the 2 houses, connecting them on 2 storeys. The main entrance now faced onto Downing Street rather than towards Horse Guards, and the Downing Street building became a passageway to the main house. At the back of the house, where the Walpoles lived, Kent created grand new rooms suitable for receiving important guests, and built an unusual, 3-sided staircase. It is still one of the most impressive features of the building.

Walpole used the ground floor for business, taking the largest room, on the north-west side of the house, as his study. This is now the Cabinet Room. Upstairs on the first floor, the Walpoles lived in the rooms facing onto Horse Guards Parade. Lady Walpole used today's White Drawing Room as her sitting room, and the present day Terracotta Room served as their dining room. The Walpoles were soon entertaining important guests in their smart house, including George II's wife Queen Caroline, politicians, writers and soldiers. Number 10 became – as it continues to be today – a place for politics and entertainment.

Pelham to Pitt

When Walpole left Downing Street in 1742, it was over 20 years before another First Lord of the Treasury moved in. His successors saw the house as a perk of the job, and Prime Ministers Henry Pelham (1743 to 1754) and the Duke of Newcastle (1757 to 1762) preferred to live in their own residences.

In 1763 George Grenville (1763 to 1765) took up residence but was sacked by King George III in 1765 for imposing stamp duty on the American colonies. The next Prime Minister to move into Downing Street was Lord North (1770 to 1782). He was very fond of the house and often entertained there. Visitors included the writer Samuel Johnson and Thomas Hansard, founder of the parliamentary reporting system that is still in use today. One guest, Clive of India, was so popular that furniture was made for him, which is still present today in the first floor anteroom and Terracotta Room.

During one memorable dinner party held by Lord North on 7 June 1780, civil unrest broke out in the street outside when angry Protestants unhappy with North's policy towards Roman Catholics rioted all over London, in what became known as the Gordon Riots. The Grenadier Guards held off a large mob, a situation that might have ended with bloodshed had North not gone outside to warn the protestors of the dangers of being shot, following which the crowd dispersed. North's dinner guests climbed to the top of the house to view the fires burning all over London.

Major improvements were made to the house during North's time, including the addition of many distinctive features: the black and white chequerboard floor in the entrance hall, the lamp above the front door and the famous lion's head door knocker.

Following the loss of the American colonies, North resigned and was followed by the Duke of Portland, who was Prime Minister for only 9 months in 1782.

Fall and rise of Number 10

At the turn of the 19th century, Downing Street had fallen on hard times. Although Number 10 continued to serve as the Prime Minister's office, it was not favoured as a home. Most prime ministers preferred to live in their own townhouses.

But by the 1820s, Downing Street had emerged as the centre of government. Prime Minister Viscount Goderich employed the brilliant, quirky architect Sir John Soane, designer of the Bank of England , to make the house more suitable for its high-profile role. Soane created the wood-panelled State Dining Room and the Small Dining Room for elegant entertaining.

But this wasn't good enough for his successor, Lord Wellington, who only moved in while his own lavish home, Apsley House , was being refurbished. Later leaders such as Lord Melbourne and Viscount Palmerston used Number 10 only as an office and for Cabinet meetings. In 1828, Number 11 became the Chancellor of the Exchequer's official residence, but the surrounding area was becoming seedier, with brothels and gin parlours multiplying. Things became so bad that by 1839 there were plans to demolish Number 10 and the other buildings on the north side of Downing Street to make way for a remodelled Whitehall.

Security also became an issue. In 1842, Edward Drummond, secretary to Prime Minister Robert Peel (1841—1846), was murdered in Whitehall on his way back to his home in Downing Street by an assassin who mistook him for Peel. The prestige of Downing Street was reduced even further by the building of the magnificent new Foreign Office building at the end of the 1860s. George Gilbert Scott's creation, with a huge open court and elaborate state rooms, dwarfed Number 10 opposite. It even had its own Cabinet Room in which the Cabinet sometimes met, rather than at Number 10.

By the time Benjamin Disraeli became Prime Minister, the house was in poor shape. The living quarters had not been used for 30 years and Disraeli described it as “dingy and decaying”. It was time for modernisation.

The late 19th and early 20th century saw 10 Downing Street transformed from a humble terraced house into a grand residence with modern facilities – a home and office fit for the most powerful politician in the country. Disraeli persuaded the state to pay for renovation to the entrance halls and public rooms, though he paid for the refurbishment of the private rooms himself. His own first floor bedroom and dressing room were improved, and a bath with hot and cold water in the First Lord's Dressing Room was installed for the sum of £150.3s.6d.

When William Gladstone moved into the house for the first time in 1880, he insisted on redecorating, spending £1,555.5s.0d – an enormous sum for the time – on furniture. During his occupancy in 1884, electric lighting was fitted and the first telephones were installed.

The Marquess of Salisbury, who succeeded Gladstone on one occasion, was the last Prime Minister not to live at Number 10. Salisbury never liked the Cabinet Room, describing it as a “cramped close room”. Preferring to work in the larger Cabinet Room in the Foreign Office and live in Arlington Street, he offered Number 10 to his nephew, Arthur Balfour, who would later become Prime Minister himself. Balfour was the first inhabitant of Number 10 to bring a motor car to Downing Street.

Over the years, more and more changes and improvements were made to the house. When Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald first entered the house, he wanted Number 10 to regain some of the grandeur it had during the times of Walpole and Pitt. Missing a proper library (or at least, one containing more than just Hansard reports), MacDonald set about creating one. He started the Prime Minister's Library, originally housed in the Cabinet Room. The custom of the Prime Minister and other ministers donating books to the library continues to this day. Central heating was installed in 1937 and work began to convert the labyrinth of rooms in the attic, which had formerly been used by servants, into a flat for the Prime Minister.

Number 10 at war

World war one.

In 1912, Herbert Henry Asquith found himself at odds with Ulster and the Tory opposition following renewed attempts to introduce Irish Home Rule. This unrest and fierce opposition would continue, and civil war in Ireland was only averted with the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914.

The Cabinet Room at Number 10 was the nerve centre of Britain's war effort. Asquith's Cabinet included future Prime Ministers David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, in their posts as Chancellor and First Lord of the Admiralty respectively. Asquith had been forced to take on the additional role of Secretary of State for War following the resignation of the incumbent in March 1914, but quickly appointed Lord Kitchener following the outbreak of war.

On 15 April 1916, Number 10 was the site of a meeting between General Haig, Commander-in-Chief of British forces in France, and the Cabinet to go over the detail of the planned Somme offensive, later known as the Battle of the Somme.

During a Cabinet split on 25 May 1915 (caused by public outcry at allegations the army had been under-supplied with shells and the failed offensive in the Dardanelles, for which Kitchener and Churchill respectively were blamed), Kitchener was stripped of his control over munitions and strategy, and Churchill lost his post as First Lord of the Admiralty. As a result of the split, Asquith formed a coalition government with the opposition Conservatives, whose leader was future Prime Minister, Andrew Bonar Law.

Asquith remained leader of the coalition until his resignation on 5 December 1916. After Andrew Bonar Law refused to form a government, David Lloyd George became leader of the coalition and Prime Minister on 7 December 1916.

Under Prime Minister Lloyd George the number of staff at Number 10 expanded and offices spilled out into the garden to cope with the demands of the administration of the war.

Lloyd George immediately formed his ‘War Cabinet’, whose members included Lord Curzon, Bonar Law and Arthur Henderson. In the first 235 days of its existence, the War Cabinet met 200 times.

This cabinet took total responsibility for the war, and on 3 occasions it sat as the Imperial War Cabinet when prime ministers from the Dominions attended. It provided a vigour previously lacking from the war effort.

Highly able young men were appointed to collect and collate data and to bypass slow moving government departments. These men were nicknamed the ‘Garden Suburb’ because they lived in huts at the end of gardens near to Downing Street. They were not liked by diehard civil servants, who they continually bypassed. However, the men from the Garden Suburb gave Lloyd George the one thing Asquith seemingly never had – up-to-date, meaningful statistics. Their work was invaluable, providing the War Cabinet with data on merchant ships sunk and UK farm production, issues essential to address if the country was not to be starved into defeat.

When armistice was finally declared on 11 November 1918, crowds thronged Downing Street chanting ‘LG’. Lloyd George made an appearance at one of the first floor windows to acknowledge them.

World War Two – Chamberlain

During the 1930s the world's eyes rested on Europe. With rising tensions between Germany and Czechoslovakia, the prime ministers of France and Britain did what they could in an attempt to avoid another war. On 12 September 1938, thousands gathered at Downing Street to listen to Hitler's speech on the final night of the Nuremberg Rally, convinced Britain stood on the brink of war.

As tension mounted further in Europe, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made several attempts to appease the situation, and Number 10 became the focus of international attention. On the morning of 29 September 1938, Chamberlain travelled to Germany for the final time as Prime Minister to hold talks with the French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier, Hitler, and Mussolini.

The Munich Agreement was signed and war – for now – had been averted. Before leaving for England, Chamberlain held a private meeting with Hitler where he obtained his signature on the famous “Peace in our Time” document, which declared that any future disputes between Britain and Germany would be settled peacefully.

Upon Chamberlain's return to Heston Airfield, he was mobbed by large crowds and gave the resounding “Peace in Our Time” speech, waving aloft the document signed by Hitler.

When he returned to Downing Street following a meeting with George VI, the Prime Minister found Downing Street and Number 10 itself packed with people. Chamberlain gave the speech a second time, from a first floor window of Number 10:

My good friends, this is the second time there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Now I recommend you go home, and sleep quietly in your beds.

But over the following 12 months tension did not lift, and on 3 September 1939, Chamberlain broadcast to the nation from the Cabinet Room at Number 10, announcing that the country was now at war with Germany. Chamberlain resigned as Prime Minister on 10 May 1940 and advised King George VI to ask Winston Churchill to form a government.

When Winston Churchill replaced Chamberlain as Prime Minister, he and his wife moved into Downing Street's second-floor flat, where Churchill did much of his work.

He often dictated speeches, memos and letters to his secretary while lying propped up in bed in the morning or late in the evening, cigar in hand.

By October 1940, the intense bombing period known as the Blitz began. On 14 October, a huge bomb fell on Treasury Green near Downing Street, damaging the Number 10 kitchen and state rooms, and killing three Civil Servants doing Home Guard duty. Churchill was dining in the Garden Rooms when the air raid began. As he recalled in his memoir Their Finest Hour (1949):

We were dining in the garden-room of Number 10 when the usual night raid began. The steel shutters had been closed. Several loud explosions occurred around us at no great distance, and presently a bomb fell, perhaps a hundred yards away, on the Horse Guards Parade, making a great deal of noise. Suddenly I had a providential impulse. The kitchen in Number 10 Downing Street is lofty and spacious, and looks out through a large plate-glass window about 25 feet high. The butler and parlour maid continued to serve the dinner with complete detachment, but I became acutely aware of this big window. I got up abruptly, went into the kitchen, told the butler to put the dinner on the hot plate in the dining-room, and ordered the cook and the other servants into the shelter, such as it was. I had been seated again at the table only about 3 minutes when a really loud crash, close at hand, and a violent shock showed that the house had been struck. My detective came into the room and said much damage had been done. The kitchen, the pantry and the offices on the Treasury were shattered.

Keeping Downing Street safe became the priority of the Prime Minister and the War Cabinet. Steel reinforcement was added to the Garden Rooms, and heavy metal shutters were fixed over windows as protection from bombing raids. The Garden Rooms included a small dining room, bedroom and a meeting area which were used by Churchill throughout the war. In reality, though, the steel reinforcement would not have protected him against a direct hit.

In October 1939, the Cabinet had moved out of Number 10 and into secret underground war rooms in the basement of the Office of Works opposite the Foreign Office, today's Churchill War Rooms .

Following near misses by bombs, in 1940, Churchill and his wife moved out of Downing Street and into the Number 10 Annex above the war rooms. Furniture and valuables were removed from Number 10 and only the Garden Rooms, Cabinet Room and Private Secretaries' office remained in use.

Churchill disliked living in the Annex and, despite it being almost empty, he continued to use Number 10 for working and eating.

A reinforced shelter was constructed under the house for up to 6 people, for use by those working in the house. Even George VI sought shelter there when he dined with Churchill in the Garden Rooms. Although bombs caused further damage to Number 10, there were no direct hits to the house, allowing Churchill to continue to work and eat there right up until the end of the war.

As soon as war was over, Churchill and his wife moved back to Number 10, where he made his Victory in Europe (VE) Day broadcast, which was delivered from the Cabinet Room at 3pm on 8 May 1945.

Falklands Conflict – Margaret Thatcher

On 19 March 1982, the Argentinian flag was raised by a group of scrap metal merchants on the island of South Georgia, a British overseas territory and dependant of the Falkland Islands. There had been a lengthy dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the sovereignty of the Islands and this action was seen as a precursor to the Argentinian invasion which would follow.

Argentine General Leopoldo Galtieri ordered the invasion of the Falklands to be brought forward to 2 April 1982, pre-empting any reinforcement of the United Kingdom's military presence in the area. Margaret Thatcher responded by sending a naval task force to recapture the islands, which set sail from Portsmouth on 5 April following a meeting of the Cabinet and the granting of a UN Resolution.

The Prime Minister stayed up all night in the Downing Street flat for the entire Falklands conflict. Margaret Thatcher's personal assistant, Cynthia Crawford, who moved into the flat at Number 10 to keep the Prime Minister company during the all-night vigils, recalls the 74 days of the conflict inside Number 10:

She did not once change into her nightclothes in the flat for the duration of the war. We would sit in the flat listening to the BBC World Service for news of the task force. She couldn’t sleep because she wanted to be ready in case anything happened. She wanted to be able to go to any briefings with the naval commanders at any time without the fuss and bother of having to get dressed. She also wanted to know everything that was happening, every single detail, so she could keep on top of events. She had to know how the soldiers, sailors and airmen were getting on. She was so worried about them. It was awful when we heard any reports of our ships being hit. Her determination and powers of endurance were unbelievable. Denis was in the room next door. The 2 of us would sit in armchairs either side of a two-bar electric fire, listening to the radio.

Crawford recalls the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street at 8am each morning to attend military briefings for an update of events during the night and to discuss the next part of the campaign:

I would take advantage of that and jump into bed at the flat so I could get some sleep. I'd tell the Downing Street switchboard to wake me when she was on her way back so I could be ready for work. We don't all have her energy.

The conflict ended with Argentinian surrender on 14 June 1982. Margaret Thatcher looked back on this period:

When I became Prime Minister I never thought that I would have to order British troops into combat and I do not think I have ever lived so tensely or intensely as during the whole of that time. Margaret Thatcher – The Downing Street Years.

Restoration and modernisation

By the 1950s, the material state of 10 Downing Street had reached crisis point. Bomb damage had worsened existing structural problems: the building was suffering from subsidence, sloping walls, twisting door frames and an enormous 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 (1951 to 1955) to Anthony Eden (1955 to 1957) to Harold Macmillan (1957 to 1963) as one Prime Minister followed the other. Finally, a committee set up by Macmillan concluded that drastic action was required before the building fell or burnt down.

The committee 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 it was decided that Number 12 should be rebuilt, and Numbers 10 and 11 should be strengthened and their historic features preserved.

The architect Raymond Erith was selected to supervise the work, which was expected to take 2 years and cost £500,000. It ended up taking a year longer than planned and costing double the original estimate. The foundations proved to be so rotten that concrete underpinning was required on a massive scale.

Number 10 was completely gutted. Walls, floors and even the columns in the Cabinet Room and Pillared Room proved to be rotten and had to be replaced. New features were added too, including a room facing onto Downing Street and a veranda at Number 11 for the Chancellor.

It was also discovered that the familiar exterior façade was not black at all, but yellow. The blackened colour was a product of two centuries of severe pollution. To keep the familiar appearance, the newly cleaned yellow bricks were painted black to match their previous colour. Erith's work was completed in 1963, but not long afterwards, dry rot became apparent and further repairs had to be undertaken.

Margaret Thatcher (1979 to 1990) 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, gained ornate plasterwork ceilings. In the White Drawing Room, this included adding the national emblems of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

All the building work of the past few decades could have been ruined when a terrorist bomb exploded in 1991. An IRA mortar bomb was fired from a white transit van in Whitehall and exploded in the garden of Number 10, only a few metres away from where Prime Minister John Major (1990 to 1997) was chairing a Cabinet meeting to discuss the Gulf War.

Although no one was killed, it left a crater in the Number 10 gardens and blew in the windows of neighbouring houses. John Major and some of his staff moved into Admiralty Arch while damage caused by the bomb was repaired.

By 2006, it was clear that the Downing Street complex was no longer able to support the business of the Prime Minister's Office reliably. Independent surveys established that the building was no longer weather-tight, the heating system was failing, and the information and communications technology (ICT) network was at the limits of its operation. Power outages and water leaks were frequent occurrences and impacted significantly on the day-to-day operation of the Prime Minister's Office.

In addition to deterioration through age, pressures on the buildings had increased dramatically over recent years, through an increase in occupancy (stable at around 50 for many years) to around 170. In 2006, Prime Minister Tony Blair (1997 to 2007) authorised a new programme of improvements, with the building remaining operational throughout. Work was launched to address structural failure, renew the infrastructure, improve access and enhance the building's sustainability.

Structural issues were among the first to be tackled, and a phased exterior repair project was launched to address failing lead guttering, cracking brickwork and other structural issues. The distinctive black colourwash was also renewed, as it had faded away in many areas to reveal the yellow brickwork beneath. During the course of the works it was discovered that the façade of 11 Downing Street was unstable, and had to be secured using 225 stainless steel pins. All work was carried out in consultation with English Heritage .

Other projects have been undertaken to renew the building's ageing infrastructure and to replace many of the building's key services, including heating, fire protection and electrical power distribution. Sustainability is a key feature of the programme and a 10% reduction in carbon emissions was achieved during 2011. Rainwater harvesting was introduced in 2009, providing a sustainable source of water for the garden. Accessibility for disabled visitors has been significantly improved through the introduction of ramps and modernisation of lifts. Many of the public areas of the building have also been restored, including the front entrance hall, the state and small dining rooms and the study.

An ongoing programme is in place to upgrade facilities to modern standards, and to ensure the preservation of this historic building for years to come.

A place of entertainment

Every week, Number 10 is the venue for official functions including meetings, receptions, lunches and dinners.

It is not only heads of state and official dignitaries who visit – functions are held for people from all areas of UK society, including notable achievers, public service employees and charity workers.

Receptions tend to be informal gatherings. Lunches and dinners are more formal events. The Small Dining Room will sit a maximum of 12, and the State Dining Room up to 65 around a large, U-shaped table. The dining table is laid with items from the state silver collection: a range of modern silverware pieces commissioned by the Silver Trust to promote modern British craftsmanship.

Installations at Number 10 timeline

Since 10 Downing Street became the official residence of the premier, the building has performed the dual role of both residence and place of work for Britain's Prime Ministers.

Number 10 has been upgraded – including new technology – throughout its history, to ensure both an acceptable standard of living for its residents and to keep the Prime Minister at the heart of decision making within government. Often, the prompt for new technology or an upgrade was the arrival of a new Prime Minister.

Here are some of the more notable developments across 3 centuries of history, from the arrival of hot running water to the first tweet:

1877 – hot and cold running water installed. The living quarters were renovated for Benjamin Disraeli – including a bath.

1894 – installation of electric lighting and first telephones. Following Disraeli's departure William Gladstone redecorated the building and oversaw the installations.

1902 – first motor-car driven onto Downing Street. Arthur Balfour brought the first car and since then, Prime Ministers have looked to select British marques for their official car, with a procession of Wolseleys, Humbers, Rovers, Daimlers and Jaguars sweeping successive Prime Ministers into – and out of – Downing Street.

1937 – first central heating.

1963 – electrical and telephone systems were replaced. 1963 was a major period of renovation for the building.

1982 – the first direct hotline between No10 and Washington was established during Margaret Thatcher's first term of office.

1982 – first ‘micro-computer’ and microfilm reader installed.

1983 – wider roll-out of computers machines for Number 10 staff following a review of the building's needs.

1990s – first video conference. John Major used the technology from his study.

1996 – desktop PCs installed at all workstations.

1996 – the launch of the first No10 website .

1998 – internet access became mainstreamed across Number 10 staff desktops.

2002 – dedicated video conferencing suite was installed. This followed the events of 9/11 and allowed the Prime Minister and his team to be in face to face contact with counterparts around the world in an instant.

2005 – a new e-mail account allowed the public to contact the Prime Minister directly.

2008 – Number 10's very own online TV station – Number10 TV

2008 – Number 10's first tweet – and there have been over 3,000 since.

Larry, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office

Larry has been in residence since 15 February 2011, he is the first cat at Number 10 to be bestowed with the official title Chief Mouser.

Larry was recruited from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home on recommendation for his mousing skills. He joined the Number 10 household and has made a significant impact.

Larry the cat

He has captured the hearts of the Great British public and the press teams often camped outside the front door. In turn the nation sends him gifts and treats daily.

Larry spends his days greeting guests to the house, inspecting security defences and testing antique furniture for napping quality. His day-to-day responsibilities also include contemplating a solution to the mouse occupancy of the house. Larry says this is still ‘in tactical planning stage’.

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Get inside 10 Downing Street

VIEW 360 VIRTUAL TOUR

It’s three years since Eye Revolution were commissioned to give the public their first glimpse inside 10 Downing Street. Now we are pleased to announce that we have worked on new and updated virtual tours for the new No.10 website. In fact, the tours offer much more than a glimpse, giving the viewer the opportunity to inspect a full 360 degrees around many of the rooms inside 10 Downing Street in high resolution and at fullscreen size. You can zoom in to see the detail, such as the Union Flag which was carried to the moon and back by Apollo 11!

Viewers can stand right outside the famous Number 10 door, taking in the view up and down Downing Street, and look at the black bricks – these are no longer blackened by London smog but were artificially blackened after the 1960s renovation as people had grown so used to seeing them as black!

We hope you enjoy viewing the 10 Downing Street virtual tours as much as we have enjoyed creating them. Please visit the link to see the 10 Downing Street virtual tours .

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Matt Burgess

Take a virtual tour of 10 Downing Street in Google Street View

Its corridors of power are typically reserved for the select and chosen few, but the doors of 10 Downing Street have now been opened thanks to Google Street View.

The Prime Minister's residence – currently occupied by Theresa May – has been opened up to those wanting to get a glimpse inside the walls of the 332-year-old building. Every prime minister since 1735 has lived inside the building designed by Christopher Wren, and the doors to the building are rarely opened to cameras.

Google's Street View cameras were used to capture nine areas of the building. These include the Thatcher Room , the Anterroom (covered with images of the Queen), and the entrance hall , which mysteriously has a painting blurred on the right-hand side. (WIRED contacted Downing Street which clarified the image is blurred for copyright reasons).

One of the few familiar sights captured by the Google team include the rose garden – where former prime minister David Cameron and his deputy, Nick Clegg, first publicly appeared as part of the coalition government of 2010.

Elsewhere in the captured rooms are the White Room , Cabinet Room , a state dining room and some of the stairways linking the building's 100 other rooms.

The historic building is not open to public tours and Downing Street, where the residence is held, is only opened to invited members of the public on special occasions . Google isn't the first to create a digital walkthrough of Number 10, though, as a team from Eye Revolution were allowed inside the building in 2015.

This time around the innards of 10 Downing Street were captured by Google's Arts and Culture team. The team, which has been creating a massive digital archive has captured details from more than 1,000 institutions. Amit Sood, Google Arts and Culture director, told The Telegraph he was pleased to be able to document the history of an "emblematic British institution".

The Cultural Institute includes thousands of artworks and the Googlers have also been capturing historic buildings and monuments. In June, the cameras opened up the royal halls of Buckingham Palace .

This article was originally published by WIRED UK

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The History Hit Miscellany of Facts, Figures and Fascinating Finds

10 Downing Street

London, England, United Kingdom

Lily Johnson

01 jan 2021.

About 10 Downing Street

10 Downing Street in London is the traditional residence of the British Prime Minister, and in its 300-year-old history has witnessed some of the country’s most important political decisions. From Winston Churchill to Margaret Thatcher , a host of Britain’s leaders have walked through its iconic black door, and today it is considered one of the most recognisable buildings in the country.

10 Downing Street history

In 1732, Britain’s first Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole was offered 10 Downing Street as a residence by George II, when it then consisted of 3 separate buildings. Walpole and architect William Kent converted these 3 buildings into a single large one, known collectively by its now-famous address and connected to each other by the Treasury Passage.

Despite its current fame, 10 Downing Street was not a popular choice of residence for Britain’s early Prime Ministers however, and even risked being demolished many times. The 20th century saw its revival when Arthur James Balfour established it as his official residence as Prime Minister in 1902, having already been living there as First Lord of the Treasury.

Since that time, 10 Downing Street has been the location from which Prime Ministers have run the country and entertained heads of state and governments from around the world. 10 Downing Street’s black door hides a warren of offices and state rooms as well as numerous conference rooms, dining rooms, private apartments, kitchens and cellars.

The fates of the First and Second World Wars have been discussed inside, as well as decisions regarding the British Empire, the building of the nuclear bomb, and the creation of the welfare state.

10 Downing Street today

Today 10 Downing Street remains the residence of Britain’s Prime Minister and thus a working governmental building. Though it is not possible to tour 10 Downing Street’s interior, except of course by invitation, the official website has a virtual tour and several audio files detailing the building’s history and that of its residents.

The site’s exterior can be also be seen from its imposing black gates at the end of the street, with tourists often flocking there to snap a photograph of its iconic entrance, thought to be the most photographed door in the country!

In the heart of London, the nearby area also features some of the city’s most-visited sites, with the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey just a 10-minute walk away.

Getting to 10 Downing Street

10 Downing Street is located in Westminster, and can be viewed by the public from the gates on Whitehall. The nearest tube station is Westminster, an 8-minute walk away, while the nearest train station is Charing Cross Station, a 10-minute walk away. A number of bus routes operate to the area, with the nearest stop the Banqueting House or Parliament Square stop, both around a 1-minute walk away.

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10 Downing Street

William Kent, 1735

10 Downing Street, SW1A 2AA

10 Downing Street has been the residence of British Prime Ministers since 1735. Behind its famous black door the most important decisions affecting Britain for the last 284 years have been taken.

Getting there

Westminster, Embankment

Charing Cross, Waterloo

12, 24, 88, 11, 453, 3, 87, 159

10 Downing Street, the locale of British prime ministers since 1735, vies with the White House as being the most important political building anywhere in the world in the modern era. Behind its black door have been taken the most important decisions affecting Britain for the last 275 years.

George Downing was responsible for the street, its name and the building we know today. A former diplomat at The Hague serving the Commonwealth, he changed allegiance with finesse. He traded enough secrets to gain a royal pardon in March 1660 and, by the Restoration in May 1660, to be rewarded with a knighthood.

Interested in power and money, he saw an opportunity to make his fortune in property. He had already gained the Crown interest in the land around Hampden House, but could not take possession as it was under lease to Knyvet's descendants. In 1682 he secured the leases to the property and employed Sir Christopher Wren to design the houses.

Between 1682 and 1684, existing properties were pulled down and in their place a cul-de-sac of 15 to 20 terraced houses was built along the north side of the new street, Downing Street. In order to maximise profit, the houses were cheaply built, with poor foundations for the boggy ground. Instead of neat brick façades, they had mortar lines drawn on to give the appearance of evenly spaced bricks.

Sir Robert Walpole took up residence on 22 September 1735, - once the townhouse on Downing Street and the house overlooking Horse Guards had been joined together and completely refurbished. Walpole employed architect William Kent – who had already worked on Walpole's Norfolk home, Houghton Hall – to undertake the work.

Kent carried out extensive work on the 2 houses, connecting them on 2 storeys. The main entrance now faced onto Downing Street rather than towards Horse Guards, and the Downing Street building became a passageway to the main house. At the back of the house, where the Walpoles lived, Kent created grand new rooms suitable for receiving important guests, and built an unusual 3-sided staircase. It is still one of the most impressive features of the building.

Walpole used the ground floor for business, taking the largest room, on the north-west side of the house, as his study. This is now the Cabinet Room. Upstairs on the first floor, the Walpoles lived in the rooms facing onto Horse Guards Parade. Lady Walpole used today's White Drawing Room as her sitting room, and the present day Terracotta Room served as their dining room. The Walpoles were soon entertaining important guests in their smart house, including George II's wife Queen Caroline, politicians, writers and soldiers.

Restoration and modernisation

By the 1950s, the material state of 10 Downing Street had reached crisis point. Bomb damage had worsened existing structural problems: the building was suffering from subsidence, sloping walls, twisting door frames and an enormous 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 (1951 to 1955) to Anthony Eden (1955 to 1957) to Harold Macmillan (1957 to 1963) as one Prime Minister followed the other. Finally, a committee set up by Macmillan concluded that drastic action was required before the building fell or burnt down.

The committee 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 it was decided that Number 12 should be rebuilt, and Numbers 10 and 11 should be strengthened and their historic features preserved.

The architect Raymond Erith was selected to supervise the work, which was expected to take 2 years and cost £500,000. It ended up taking a year longer than planned and costing double the original estimate. The foundations proved to be so rotten that concrete underpinning was required on a massive scale.

Number 10 was completely gutted. Walls, floors and even the columns in the Cabinet Room and Pillared Room proved to be rotten and had to be replaced. New features were added too, including a room facing onto Downing Street and a veranda at Number 11 for the Chancellor.

It was also discovered that the familiar exterior façade was not black at all, but yellow. The blackened colour was a product of two centuries of severe pollution. To keep the familiar appearance, the newly cleaned yellow bricks were painted black to match their previous colour. Erith's work was completed in 1963, but not long afterwards, dry rot became apparent and further repairs had to be undertaken.

Margaret Thatcher (1979 to 1990) 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, gained ornate plasterwork ceilings. In the White Drawing Room, this included adding the national emblems of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

By 2006, it was clear that the Downing Street complex was no longer able to support the business of the Prime Minister's Office reliably. Independent surveys established that the building was no longer weather-tight, the heating system was failing, and the information and communications technology (ICT) network was at the limits of its operation. Power outages and water leaks were frequent occurrences and impacted significantly on the day-to-day operation of the Prime Minister's Office.

In addition to deterioration through age, pressures on the buildings had increased dramatically over recent years, through an increase in occupancy (stable at around 50 for many years) to around 170. In 2006, Prime Minister Tony Blair (1997 to 2007) authorised a new programme of improvements, with the building remaining operational throughout. Work was launched to address structural failure, renew the infrastructure, improve access and enhance the building's sustainability.

Structural issues were among the first to be tackled, and a phased exterior repair project was launched to address failing lead guttering, cracking brickwork and other structural issues. The distinctive black colourwash was also renewed, as it had faded away in many areas to reveal the yellow brickwork beneath. During the course of the works it was discovered that the façade of 11 Downing Street was unstable, and had to be secured using 225 stainless steel pins. All work was carried out in consultation with English Heritage.

Other projects have been undertaken to renew the building's ageing infrastructure and to replace many of the building's key services, including heating, fire protection and electrical power distribution. Sustainability is a key feature of the programme and a 10% reduction in carbon emissions was achieved during 2011. Rainwater harvesting was introduced in 2009, providing a sustainable source of water for the garden. Accessibility for disabled visitors has been significantly improved through the introduction of ramps and modernisation of lifts. Many of the public areas of the building have also been restored, including the front entrance hall, the state and small dining rooms and the study.

An ongoing programme is in place to upgrade facilities to modern standards, and to ensure the preservation of this historic building for years to come.

See www.gov.uk/government/history/10-downing-street

The Banqueting House

historical house, palace, concert/performance space

Stunning regal building, the only surviving building from Whitehall Palace, one of the first examples of the principles of Palladianism being applied to an English building. Site of a set of magnificent ceiling paintings by Rubens.

Inigo Jones, 1619

Walking tour

Tyrants, Colonialism and Slavery walking tour

A diverse walking tour, with a qualified guide, in the heart of Westminster where we visit some statues and places that have a significance to tyranny, colonialism and slavery. The walk is accessible to all and ends in Trafalgar Square.

The British Academy

institution/profession

One of London's finest examples of Georgian architecture, Carlton House Terrace was designed by John Nash and built between 1827 and 1833. It is home to the British Academy, the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences.

John Nash, 1827

The Royal Society

institution/profession, scientific, education, library, online

A spectacular Grade I listed building designed by famed architect John Nash. Built in 1831, these former townhouses have undergone refurbishments throughout their history. The building is now home to the UK's national science academy.

John Nash, Decimus Burton, 1831

Guided tour

National Liberal Club

An impressive Victorian neo-Classical building overlooking the Embankment of the river Thames. It is the second-largest clubhouse ever built, the first London building to incorporate a lift and to be entirely lit by electric lighting.

Alfred Waterhouse, 1886

The Mysterious Black Tudors - Westminster Family Trail

Celebrate the Open House Festival with this fun and interactive family event about Britain's forgotten history of the Black Tudors.

Canada House

embassy/high commission

Canada's diplomatic home in the United Kingdom, the revitalised Canada House serves as a showcase for the very best of Canadian art and design in the 21C.

Sir Robert Smirke, 1823

Benjamin Franklin House

historical house, museum

Grade I listed Georgian house, the only surviving home of Benjamin Franklin, retaining many original features including central staircase, lathing, 18th Century panelling, stoves, windows, fittings and beams.

Baron William Craven the Younger, 1732

Reform Club

Built as a Whig gentleman's club and inspired by Italian Renaissance palaces. Lobby leads to an enclosed colonnaded courtyard with complementary glazed roof and tessellated floor. Tunnelled staircase leads to upper floor.

Charles Barry, 1841

College of Optometrists

institution/profession, library, museum

HQ of professional and examining body for UK optometrists occupying two terraced houses, No. 41 (Flitcroft c1730 with later additions) and No. 42 (rebuilt by Tarmac plc, c1989) including Council chamber, print room, library and museum.

Henry Flitcroft, 1730

Beating the Bounds

Setting off from the Festival of Britain site we cover icons of the South Bank before heading into the back streets to see different types of social housing. We travel over to Bankside to see an overview of the historic and contemporary.

Unknown, 19

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Downing Street Tour

A short tour of Number 10 Downing Street.

10 Downing street. Photo: Sergeant Tom Robinson RLC/MOD , OGL v1.0OGL v1.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Black Door

The most famous door in the world.

10 Downing Street’s black door is seen at every election and during every political crisis. The Prime Minister will often speak to the nation directly from Downing Street, with the door as a backdrop.

Downing Street’s black door is the iconic symbol of British political fortunes and power. It is also a good symbol of Downing Street’s history itself. It has an old, orderly, and traditional appearance, but also contains hints that things are more complicated than might appear.

On the letter box are the words ‘First Lord of the Treasury’, the Prime Minister’s official and original position (they would only be known as ‘Prime Minister’ decades later). It was the first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, who insisted that Downing Street accompany the office of the First Lord of the Treasury in 1732.  Though, Walpole would never have recognised this door; it only took on this appearance during the late eighteenth century.

The door has not always been black. It was a dark green during the early 20 th Century. Nor were the bricks originally black, they were yellow when the house was originally built during the 1680s, but centuries of grime turned them black. The modern façade is, however, painted black.

The sharp eyed will note that the 0 in 10 is actually slightly lopsided. This is a recent invention and a nod to Downing Street’s history of shoddy building, restoration and repairs.  Don’t try and post anything through the letter box either; it’s only a decoration. The door’s impressive lion’s head doorknocker and brass doorbell are also decorative.

The Entrance Hall

On the other side of the black door is the Downing Street Entrance Hall.

This is the first view that an incoming Prime Minister has of Number 10 as they are ‘clapped in’ by the staff. It is also the last place where they will be in Downing Street, after being ‘clapped out’ by staff, before they exit and face the pitiless cameras of the waiting media outside.

Move around the map to explore the Entrance Hall

The black and white marble floor dates from the 1770s. The Chippendale hooded chair was once used by Downing Street’s guards, and there are marks on the leather where their pistols supposedly caused scratches.

The smaller chairs in the room are supposedly from a design for chairs used at cockfights, allowing the sitter to face either way. This might be considered a reference to the Cockpit theatre, which once stood near this site.

There are portraits of the first Prime Minister Robert Walpole (1721-42), Henry Pelham (1743-1754), and William Pitt the Elder (1766-68). The latter two remembered as leaders in peace and war respectively. A portrait of George Downing is to the right of the door. An 18 th Century view of Horse Guards Parade is above the fireplace on the right. Of the four persons depicted on the walls, only Walpole actually lived here.

A door to the left leads into Number 11. To your right, there is a door to the press offices, with their distinctive bow-windows, built by Erith during the 1960s.

Cabinet Room

Move around the map to explore the Cabinet Room

Leaving the entrance hall, you will walk down a corridor, past the lift, and out of the original, narrow Downing Street house, into the ‘House at the Back’. Soon, you are in the Cabinet ante-room, where the Cabinet ministers assemble awaiting the Prime Minister. There is a painting of long-vanished Whitehall Palace on the wall. Perhaps it is a reminder of England’s rich history, or a warning to ministers that even palaces can be transient.

Entering the Cabinet Room, the eye is immediately drawn to the famous ‘boat shaped’ table, which was introduced by Harold Macmillan during the early 1960s. The design allows the Prime Minister to see every member of the cabinet without having to lean forward. The seats are all tucked in, except for the Prime Minister’s, which faces outwards at an angle. A portrait of Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister, watches from above.

This is the most significant room in the British government, and perhaps in all British history. Some of the most important decisions since the 18 th Century were made in this room, and those decisions have shaped the destinies of millions of people in Britain, and millions more around the world. Cabinet usually meets once a week, though will occasionally meet much more often, especially during a political crisis.

Originally, Walpole used this room as a study, and the area where the pillars are, was his waiting room. In more recent times, Balfour also used this room as his study, as did Baldwin. Churchill liked to meet Cabinet here, but Downing Street was bomb damaged for much of the war, with business largely conducted in the secure Cabinet War Rooms.

Most Prime Ministers have worked in the Cabinet Room and several have used it as their main office, including Clement Attlee and John Major. However, others have felt less comfortable working there alone.

On 4 August 1914, after days of fraught Cabinet meetings, Prime Minister H.H. Asquith, Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, Lord Haldane, and Chancellor Lloyd George sat in the Cabinet Room waiting until the expiry of the British ultimatum to Germany. At 11pm, they could hear the chimes of Big Ben, and knew that Britain was at war.

Corinthian columns date to a 1796 restoration which enlarged the room, by combining it with another. There is a small collection of books, many donated by prime ministers, visitors and aides. This was once Number 10’s library, though the books were removed during the 1950s, leaving only a couple of small bookshelves.

Double doors at the end of the Cabinet Room lead to  a small study that many Prime Ministers have used as their personal space.

Leave the Cabinet Room. Now, the grand staircase takes us up to the State Rooms.

Move around the map to explore the Staircase

If you follow the stairs down, you will find an exit to the gardens and some of the ‘Garden Rooms’, where Number 10’s tireless staff toil.

Portraits of every prime minister line the main staircase in Number 10. These were a gift of Sir Edward Hamilton, Treasury Permanent Secretary in 1907. Briefly removed by Dorothy Macmillan during the 1950s, Harold Wilson restored the pictures and they remain to this day. Every portrait is black and white and they are all shuffled down when a new one is added.

The staircase has no visible supports – something that allowed Ramsay MacDonald’s daughter Sheila to slide down the banisters during the 1920s. She told anyone who challenged her that she was learning the Prime Ministers of England as their portraits went past. The lamps were not there at the time, because they were added during the renovation of the 1960s.

White Drawing Room

Move around the map to explore the White Drawing Room

This is the first of Downing Street’s three major state rooms. These state rooms were once the Prime Minister’s living areas. It was only during the late 1930s that a flat was built on the second floor for the Prime Minister, allowing them to vacate the state rooms. Stanley Baldwin was the last Prime Minister to live in the first floor rooms, and his successor, Neville Chamberlain, was the first to live in the Downing Street Flat.

During Churchill’s second ministry (1951-55), Clementine Churchill used these rooms as a residence, as did Dorothy Macmillan during the last months of Harold Macmillan’s premiership in 1963, but since then the State Rooms have been reserved for business.

Robert Walpole’s son, Horace, wrote on the 30 June 1742: I am writing to you in one of the charming rooms towards the park: it is a delightful evening, and I am willing to enjoy this sweet corner while I may, for we are soon to quit it. Horace Walpole, 30 June 1742

The room was transformed during the 1980s redecorating by Quinlan Terry and is now a grand state room. The ceiling moulds have a three-dimensional floral design, featuring the rose of England, thistle of Scotland, daffodil for Wales, and shamrock for Northern Ireland. The small table is thought to have belonged to Robert Clive (an 18 th  Century general), and the Waterford chandelier is similar to theone in the Terracotta Drawing Room. The furniture is mostly from the designs of famous 18 th Century furniture designer Thomas Chippendale.

It is the room where the unfortunate Lord Iddesleigh died in January 1887 after he collapsed on the stairs. Iddesleigh was one of only two men since 1721 to have been First Lord of the Treasury without ever being Prime Minister, and, when he died, he was visiting the other, William H. Smith (Arthur Balfour was also First Lord of the Treasury without being Prime Minister over 1891-92 and 1895-1902, but then became Prime Minister in his own right over 1902-05).

This room is often used for television broadcasts to the nation and interviews. Boris Johnson’s speech announcing a lockdown in March 2020 was made from this room (with the Terracotta Drawing Room in the background).

Terracotta Drawing Room

The Terracotta Drawing Room is another state room, and can be used for small meetings, discussions and interviews.

Move around the map to explore the Terracotta Drawing Room

This room was painted blue during the 1980s, and then green during the 1990s, and only took on its current appearance during the 2000s.  A desk in the corner is believed to have belonged to Pitt the Younger, though it would have been a cramped fit for the famously tall Pitt.

Portraits of Britain’s paramount heroes of the Napoleonic Wars, Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington, hang above the doors. They appear to have been hung there during the Thatcher years. She proudly showed off the paintings to American Secretary of State Alexander Haig during the Falklands crisis, indicating that she intended to follow their victorious example.

The paintings commemorate the only time that Nelson and Wellington met, which was in 12 Downing Street on 12 September 1805, in an anteroom of the War and Colonial Office where they were awaiting a meeting with Lord Castlereagh. Wellington (then Major General Arthur Wellesley) later recalled “[Nelson] talked of the state of this country and of the aspect and probability of affairs on the Continent with good sense…in fact, he talked like an officer and a statesman’. Nelson was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar a few weeks later.

The Pillared Room

The Pillared Room is the largest of the state rooms. As such, it is frequently used for events, political cabinets, and any large meeting of Number 10 staff.

Ionic columns decorate this room and give it its name. These date from the 1790s, during Pitt the Younger’s long tenure. The chandelier is the largest in the house and is made from cut glass. There is a pair of Chippendale mirrors in this room.

Historically, this room was used by Lord Palmerston and William Gladstone as a Cabinet Room. In 1930, John Logie Baird demonstrated the ‘wondrous miracle’ of television to Ramsay MacDonald in this room.

This is also a room decorated by large paintings. The artwork on Number 10’s walls comes from the National Gallery and the Government Art Service. It was Ramsay MacDonald, during the 1920s, who, having no art collection himself, began the tradition of borrowing art from the National Gallery. The art is chosen by a working group of art specialists, though it reflects the inclinations and instructions of the current Prime Minister.

Some say this room is haunted by the ghost of a woman in a taffeta dress, though others say they have seen a ghost in the nearby dining room. As usual with such matters, the story tends to have been heard from somebody else.

Move around the map to explore the Pillared Room

The State Dining Room

This is the largest and arguably the most impressive room in Number 10. It certainly hosts the most prestigious events with space for up to 65 guests to be seated.

Move around the map to explore the State Dining Room

This room was designed by the architect Sir John Soane during the 1820s. He chose a star vault pattern for the ceiling and created a large room by demolishing a wall. He added a central window, and the oak panelled sides.

This room is used for large state dinners for visiting world leaders and dignitaries. Winston Churchill dined with the new Queen here the night before announcing his retirement in 1955. This is where the 250 th anniversary dinner was celebrated in 1985 (when 6 Prime Ministers were present –Macmillan, Douglas-Home, Wilson, Heath, Callaghan, Thatcher). It is also where the Queen’s Golden Jubilee dinner took place in 2002 (this time with 5 Prime Ministers – Heath, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair), and where the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee dinner was celebrated in 2012 (attended by Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron).

This room is also used for the grand press conferences that are an increasingly common part of the Prime Minister’s schedule. In these circumstances, the table is cleared away (it is of telescopic design, so this can be easily done) and chairs are set out. The doors are always left open to allow the PM access, and often flags are placed (in the small dining room, which is also cleared) to provide a backdrop. The press briefings during the 2020-21 Coronavirus outbreak took place in this room.

Small Dining Room

Move around the map to explore the Small Dining Room

Once nothing more than a corridor and waiting area before entry into the State Dining Room, this was designed by Soane in 1826. The bust by the window is of Isaac Newton.

It was once known as the Breakfast Room and can be used for meals attended by up to 12 people. It is often used for smaller events, like meetings of the Prime Minister with key advisers and for more discrete meetings with world leaders. Before the building of the Downing Street flat, it would be used for dining by the Prime Minister’s family.

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10 Downing Street London, United Kingdom

10 Downing Street, the home of British prime ministers since 1735, vies with the White House as being the most important political building anywhere in the world. Behind its iconic black door, the most important decisions affecting Britain for the last 275 years have been taken.

In the 20th century alone, the First and Second World Wars were directed from within it, as were the key decisions about the end of the empire, the building of the first British nuclear bomb, the handling of economic crises from the Great Depression in 1929 to the modern day, and the development of the welfare state.

Some of the most famous political figures of modern history have lived and worked in Number 10, including Robert Walpole, Pitt the Younger, Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone, David Lloyd George, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.

Number 10 has overlapping functions. It is the official residence of the Prime Minister: it is their office, and also the place where they entertain guests from Her Majesty The Queen, world leaders and other British and overseas guests from business and charities.

Meet two of the most iconic British Prime Ministers

10 downing street, take a tour through the historic rooms of 10 downing street, in this collection, godfrey kneller, harold wilson, 8 museum views.

Take a peek inside the gardens at No 10 Downing Street

Mar 1, 2019 • 2 min read

We've caught glimpses of the  garden  at 10 Downing Street in  London  on occasion, mainly because it has been enjoyed by  British  prime ministers and their families for over 285 years.  If you would like to examine the garden attached to the headquarters of the UK Government, currently home to Prime Minister Theresa May, now's your chance, because a public ballot will be held to win the opportunity to go inside the garden and terrace and see it for yourself.

The garden will be open during the Open Garden Squares Weekend 2019 in June. Over 100 green spaces in the UK will open their gates for public enjoyment and discovery during this annual event, many of which are usually closed to the public. Organised by the London Parks and Gardens, the event aims to cultivate knowledge and appreciation of all these landscapes and celebrate their beauty, ecology and value. There will be two tours of the Downing Street garden on Sunday 9 June at 11.30am and 1.30pm, and 24 places are available on each tour.

Constructed in 1736, the garden at 10 Downing Street is dominated by an open lawn of half an acre in size, and there’s a central flowerbed with flower urns. Tubs of flowers line the terrace and roses line the main pathway through the garden. There’s also bird-feeding tables, and a vegetable garden that produces radishes, spring onions, tomatoes and lettuce. The garden also features an attractive bronze sculpture by Barbara Hepworth and some trees.

The garden backs onto Horse Guards Parade and includes a wildlife pond and area created by the BBC’s Blue Peter programme. Ducks have often nested there before mum and ducklings are escorted back to St. James Park. The garden has provided an informal setting for a number of significant gatherings, such as press announcements and social events. In 2011, UK prime minister at the time, David Cameron, and his wife Samantha joined with the-then US  president, Barack Obama, and his wife Michelle in the garden, to provide a barbecue for military personnel.

The Open Garden Squares Weekend 2018 takes place on  8 and 9 June and with the purchase of a weekend ticket, you can explore London’s urban gardens, and enjoy a range of activities and experiences for all the family. For further information, see  here  and to enter the ballot to win a place on one of the 10 Downing Street tours, see  here .

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David Cameron under fire for hiring £42m luxury jet for central Asia tour

Foreign secretary’s use of Embraer Lineage 1000 follows £348,000 bill for James Cleverly’s eight-day trip in similar plane in 2023

David Cameron has been criticised for hiring a luxury jet worth an estimated £42m for a recent tour of central Asia.

The foreign secretary travelled on the Embraer Lineage 1000 for a five-day visit to Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia last week, the Mirror reported.

Union Aviation, the charter firm that operates the jet, said on its website that a sommelier helps pick the onboard wine selection and that it provides a food menu suitable for “the most demanding passengers”.

The plane’s other features include its own dining table, in addition to a separate relaxation zone with extra-long sofas.

The shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, posted on X: “I get that David Cameron may need to charter a plane when travelling to multiple countries in one week, but that does not justify spending hundreds of thousands of pounds at taxpayers’ expense to hire one of the most luxurious private jets on the market.”

I get that David Cameron may need to charter a plane when travelling to multiple countries in one week, but that does not justify spending hundreds of thousands of pounds at taxpayers' expense to hire one of the most luxurious private jets on the market. https://t.co/2Snbwhed8w pic.twitter.com/xexZZnjvEe — Emily Thornberry (@EmilyThornberry) April 28, 2024

Prior to Cameron’s tour, the government said the foreign secretary would use the visit to promote opportunities for British businesses and announce £50m of new funding to support the sovereignty and independence of states across the region.

A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office spokesperson said: “The foreign secretary’s job requires him to travel abroad to pursue the UK’s interests. This was the most time effective way to do this in this instance. Value for money is taken into account in all travel decisions and costs are routinely published for transparency.”

Last year, Cameron’s predecessor James Cleverly was criticised for a bill of about €400,000 (£348,000) when he used the same type of plane for an eight-day tour of the Caribbean and Latin America.

Rishi Sunak has also been criticised for his fondness for short-distance air travel for journeys within the UK.

In February 2023 the prime minister travelled to London from Dorset by helicopter and flew back to south-west England by jet the next morning, Downing Street said.

The previous month, Sunak took domestic flights in RAF jets three times in 10 days . He took a 40-minute flight on a 14-seat aircraft to an event in Blackpool, Lancashire, where he took questions from the public. It came after flights to Scotland and Leeds.

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Claudia Looi

Touring the Top 10 Moscow Metro Stations

By Claudia Looi 2 Comments

Komsomolskaya metro station looks like a museum. It has vaulted ceilings and baroque decor.

Hidden underground, in the heart of Moscow, are historical and architectural treasures of Russia. These are Soviet-era creations – the metro stations of Moscow.

Our guide Maria introduced these elaborate metro stations as “the palaces for the people.” Built between 1937 and 1955, each station holds its own history and stories. Stalin had the idea of building beautiful underground spaces that the masses could enjoy. They would look like museums, art centers, concert halls, palaces and churches. Each would have a different theme. None would be alike.

The two-hour private tour was with a former Intourist tour guide named Maria. Maria lived in Moscow all her life and through the communist era of 60s to 90s. She has been a tour guide for more than 30 years. Being in her 60s, she moved rather quickly for her age. We traveled and crammed with Maria and other Muscovites on the metro to visit 10 different metro stations.

Arrow showing the direction of metro line 1 and 2

Moscow subways are very clean

To Maria, every street, metro and building told a story. I couldn’t keep up with her stories. I don’t remember most of what she said because I was just thrilled being in Moscow.   Added to that, she spilled out so many Russian words and names, which to one who can’t read Cyrillic, sounded so foreign and could be easily forgotten.

The metro tour was the first part of our all day tour of Moscow with Maria. Here are the stations we visited:

1. Komsomolskaya Metro Station  is the most beautiful of them all. Painted yellow and decorated with chandeliers, gold leaves and semi precious stones, the station looks like a stately museum. And possibly decorated like a palace. I saw Komsomolskaya first, before the rest of the stations upon arrival in Moscow by train from St. Petersburg.

2. Revolution Square Metro Station (Ploshchad Revolyutsii) has marble arches and 72 bronze sculptures designed by Alexey Dushkin. The marble arches are flanked by the bronze sculptures. If you look closely you will see passersby touching the bronze dog's nose. Legend has it that good luck comes to those who touch the dog's nose.

Touch the dog's nose for good luck. At the Revolution Square station

Revolution Square Metro Station

3. Arbatskaya Metro Station served as a shelter during the Soviet-era. It is one of the largest and the deepest metro stations in Moscow.

Arbatskaya Metro Station

4. Biblioteka Imeni Lenina Metro Station was built in 1935 and named after the Russian State Library. It is located near the library and has a big mosaic portrait of Lenin and yellow ceramic tiles on the track walls.

Lenin's portrait at the Biblioteka Imeni Lenina Metro Station

5. Kievskaya Metro Station was one of the first to be completed in Moscow. Named after the capital city of Ukraine by Kiev-born, Nikita Khruschev, Stalin's successor.

Kievskaya Metro Station

6. Novoslobodskaya Metro Station  was built in 1952. It has 32 stained glass murals with brass borders.

Novoslobodskaya metro station

7. Kurskaya Metro Station was one of the first few to be built in Moscow in 1938. It has ceiling panels and artwork showing Soviet leadership, Soviet lifestyle and political power. It has a dome with patriotic slogans decorated with red stars representing the Soviet's World War II Hall of Fame. Kurskaya Metro Station is a must-visit station in Moscow.

Ceiling panel and artworks at Kurskaya Metro Station

8. Mayakovskaya Metro Station built in 1938. It was named after Russian poet Vladmir Mayakovsky. This is one of the most beautiful metro stations in the world with 34 mosaics painted by Alexander Deyneka.

Mayakovskaya station

One of the over 30 ceiling mosaics in Mayakovskaya metro station

9. Belorusskaya Metro Station is named after the people of Belarus. In the picture below, there are statues of 3 members of the Partisan Resistance in Belarus during World War II. The statues were sculpted by Sergei Orlov, S. Rabinovich and I. Slonim.

10. Teatralnaya Metro Station (Theatre Metro Station) is located near the Bolshoi Theatre.

Teatralnaya Metro Station decorated with porcelain figures .

Taking the metro's escalator at the end of the tour with Maria the tour guide.

Have you visited the Moscow Metro? Leave your comment below.

January 15, 2017 at 8:17 am

An excellent read! Thanks for much for sharing the Russian metro system with us. We're heading to Moscow in April and exploring the metro stations were on our list and after reading your post, I'm even more excited to go visit them. Thanks again 🙂

December 6, 2017 at 10:45 pm

Hi, do you remember which tour company you contacted for this tour?

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• Preplanned tours
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Moscow Metro

The Moscow Metro Tour is included in most guided tours’ itineraries. Opened in 1935, under Stalin’s regime, the metro was not only meant to solve transport problems, but also was hailed as “a people’s palace”. Every station you will see during your Moscow metro tour looks like a palace room. There are bright paintings, mosaics, stained glass, bronze statues… Our Moscow metro tour includes the most impressive stations best architects and designers worked at - Ploshchad Revolutsii, Mayakovskaya, Komsomolskaya, Kievskaya, Novoslobodskaya and some others.

What is the kremlin in russia?

The guide will not only help you navigate the metro, but will also provide you with fascinating background tales for the images you see and a history of each station.

And there some stories to be told during the Moscow metro tour! The deepest station - Park Pobedy - is 84 metres under the ground with the world longest escalator of 140 meters. Parts of the so-called Metro-2, a secret strategic system of underground tunnels, was used for its construction.

During the Second World War the metro itself became a strategic asset: it was turned into the city's biggest bomb-shelter and one of the stations even became a library. 217 children were born here in 1941-1942! The metro is the most effective means of transport in the capital.

There are almost 200 stations 196 at the moment and trains run every 90 seconds! The guide of your Moscow metro tour can explain to you how to buy tickets and find your way if you plan to get around by yourself.

Sovremennik" cinema square, Elektrostal Live Cam

Sovremennik" cinema square, elektrostal.

Live webcam shows the square in front of the cinema «Sovremennik» in real time. The camera is installed on the house number 18 on Mir Street in the city of Elektrostal, Moscow Region, Russia. The live camera is aimed at the monument to I.F. Tevosyan, which is located on the square of the Sovremennik cinema. The intersection of Tevosyan Street and Mir Street is in the field of view of the web camera. Therefore, this live camera can help assess the workload of this section of the road and the presence of congestion at the intersection. The main entrance of the school №13 and the pedestrian crossing in front of it also on the broadcating.

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Moscow Metro Underground Small-Group Tour - With Reviews & Ratings

Moscow metro underground small-group tour.

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Tour Information

Key Details

• Mobile Voucher Accepted
• Free Cancellation
• Duration: 3 Hrs
• Language: English
• Departure Time : 10:00 AM
• Departure Details : Karl Marks Monument on Revolution Square, metro stop: Square of Revolution
• Return Details : Metro Smolenskaya
• If you cancel at least 4 day(s) in advance of the scheduled departure, there is no cancellation fee.
• If you cancel within 3 day(s) of the scheduled departure, there is a 100 percent cancellation fee.
• Tours booked using discount coupon codes will be non refundable.

Go beneath the streets on this tour of the spectacular, mind-bending Moscow Metro! Be awed by architecture and spot the Propaganda , then hear soviet stories from a local in the know. Finish it all up above ground, looking up to Stalins skyscrapers, and get the inside scoop on whats gone on behind those walls.

Know More about this tour

We begin our Moscow tour beneath the city, exploring the underground palace of the Moscow Metro. From the Square of Revolution station, famous for its huge statues of soviet people (an armed soldier, a farmer with a rooster, a warrior, and more), we’ll move onto some of the most significant stations, where impressive mosaics, columns, and chandeliers will boggle your eyes! Moreover, these stations reveal a big part of soviet reality — the walls depict plenty of Propaganda , with party leaders looking down from images on the walls. Your local guide will share personal stories of his/her family from USSR times, giving you insight into Russia’s complicated past and present. Then we’re coming back up to street level, where we’ll take a break and refuel with some Russian fast food: traditional pancakes, called bliny. And then, stomachs satiated, we are ready to move forward! We’ll take the eco-friendly electric trolleybus, with a route along the Moscow Garden Ring. Used mainly by Russian babushkas(grannies) during the day, the trolleybus hits peak hours in the mornings and evenings, when many locals use it going to and from their days. Our first stop will be the Aviator’s House, one of Stalin’s Seven Sisters, followed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — and you’ll hear the legends of what has gone on inside the walls. Throughout your Moscow tour, you’ll learn curious facts from soviet history while seeing how Russia exists now, 25 years after the USSR.

Local English-speaking guide

Pancake snack and drink

Additional food and drinks

Tickets for public transport

Souvenirs and items of a personal nature

Tips and gratuities for the guide

Additional Info

Confirmation will be received at time of booking

Dress standard: Please wear comfortable shoes for walking. For your Urban Adventure you will be in a small group of a maximum of 12 people

Traveler Reviews

This tour exceeded our expectations. Nikolai (Nick), our tour guide, was very knowledgeable, thorough, and has a great personality. He didn't take shortcuts and really covered everything that was on the agenda in great detail. We saw beautiful metro stations and learned the history behind them, including many of the murals and designs.

We did the tour with Anna her knowledge and understanding of the History surrounding the metro brought the tour alive. Well done Anna!

This tour was amazing!

Anna was a great tour guide. She gave us heaps of interesting information, was very friendly, and very kindly showed us how to get to our next tour.

Amazing beauty and history.

An excellent tour helped by an absolutely amazing guide. Anna gave a great insight into the history of the metro helped by additional material she had prepared.

great tour and guide - thanks again

great will do it again, Miriam ke was very good as a guide she has lived here all here life so knew every interesting detail.a good day

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Horses Run Loose Through Central London in Surreal Spectacle

A number of runaway army horses galloped through London on Wednesday morning, causing alarm and injuring pedestrians. All of the animals were eventually recovered.

By Mark Landler

Reporting from London

Several runaway military horses galloped through the streets of London on Wednesday morning, alarming pedestrians, sideswiping cars and buses, and turning an ordinary rush hour into a frightening, almost surreal spectacle.

Four people were treated for injuries, including a soldier who was thrown from one of the horses, according to the London Ambulance Service. The horses, which belong to the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, a unit that parades in royal pageants, are normally well-trained symbols of London’s regal past.

On Wednesday, however, they broke into a panicked stampede that had more in common with the Wild West. Galloping past some of London’s most famous sites — from Buckingham Palace to Tower Bridge — they left a trail of damaged vehicles and shocked pedestrians, some of whom had to dart out of their way.

By 10:30 a.m., the Metropolitan Police said that all the horses had been recovered and were back in their barracks in Hyde Park. But some had suffered injuries, including a white horse that had blood splashed on its neck, chest and forelimbs.

The drama began shortly after 8 a.m. when the horses, apparently spooked by the noise from a nearby construction site, threw off the military riders who were taking them out for routine exercises. Photographs showed one of the soldiers being treated while lying on the ground on Buckingham Palace Road.

Video footage captured a pair of riderless horses galloping in Aldwych, a stately area in central London. Their hooves clattered in the shadow of grand stone buildings as passers-by scattered, buses jerked to a stop and cars honked. The white horse, wearing a saddle and stirrups with its reins flying behind it, was caught on video later galloping in the vicinity of Tower Bridge.

Other pictures showed the result of unexpected encounters between animals and a busy urban landscape: a double-decker tour bus with a smashed windshield and a gray Mercedes van with a dented door and smashed rear windows.

As the incident unfolded, newspapers and broadcasters began carrying live coverage, briefly riveting much of the city. The Metropolitan Police said in a statement, “We are aware of a number of horses that are currently loose in central London and are working with colleagues, including the army, to locate them.”

Shortly before 10 a.m., the City of London police reported that its officers had corralled two of the horses near Limehouse, a neighborhood adjacent to the city’s docklands. That indicated they had made their way across Central London, from Westminster through Covent Garden and past the financial district.

“We’re waiting for an army horse box to collect the horses and transport them to veterinary care,” the city police said in a statement.

An army spokesman told The Daily Telegraph that horses had been recovered and returned to their camp, but he added, “A number of personnel and horses have been injured and are receiving the appropriate medical attention.”

The Household Cavalry — made up of the two most senior units in the British Army, the Life Guards and the Blues and Royals — is a familiar sight in royal pageants. They trooped in the coronation of King Charles III last May and during the state funeral of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II , in September 2022.

The cavalry’s horses are trained to be comfortable in busy streets and around people, which made the incident on Wednesday extraordinarily unusual.

Tourists often pose for pictures next to the horses when they stand guard in front of Horse Guards Parade , a ceremonial parade ground on Whitehall, north of Downing Street. The soldiers astride them only occasionally scold the tourists for getting too close or otherwise disturbing the animals.

Mark Landler is the London bureau chief of The Times, covering the United Kingdom, as well as American foreign policy in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He has been a journalist for more than three decades. More about Mark Landler