<commit_before><% page_title "History of 10 Downing Street" %>
<% page_class "histories-show" %>

<div class="block">
  <div class="inner-block">
    <header class="page-header">
      <h1 class="topics">
        <a href="/government/history">History</a>
      </h1>
      <h2>10 Downing Street</h2>
    </header>
  </div>
</div>

<div class="block content-list">
  <div class="inner-block">
    <%= image_tag 'history/buildings/number-10-300.jpg', alt: 'King Charles Street' %>
    <nav class="js-stick-at-top-when-scrolling">
      <h1>Contents</h1>
      <ol>
        <li><a href="#introduction">Introduction</a></li>
        <li><a href="#take-the-tour">Take the tour</a></li>
        <li><a href="#origins-and-early-inhabitants">Origins and Early Inhabitants</a></li>
        <li><a href="#emergence-of-downing-street">The Emergence of Downing Street</a></li>
        <li><a href="#pelham-to-pitt">Pelham to Pitt</a></li>
        <li><a href="#fall-and-rise">Fall and Rise of Number 10</a></li>
        <li><a href="#number-10-at-war">Number 10 at War</a></li>
        <li><a href="#restoration-and-modernisation">Restoration and Modernisation</a></li>
        <li><a href="#a-place-of-entertainment">A Place of Entertainment</a></li>
        <li><a href="#installations-at-number-10-timeline">Installations at Number 10 Timeline</a></li>
        <li><a href="#larry-chief-mouser">Larry, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet&nbsp;Office</a></li>
      </ol>
    </nav>
  </div>
</div>

<div class="block content-body">
  <div class="inner-block">
    <h2 id="introduction">Introduction &ndash; by Dr <NAME></h2>
    <p>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.</p>
    <p>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 of today, and the building up of the welfare state.</p>
    <p>Some of the most famous political figures of modern history have lived and worked in Number 10, including <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME> and <NAME>.</p>
    <p>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 entertains guests from Her Majesty The Queen 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.</p>
    <p>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 late 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 &ndash; the official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.</p>

    <h2 id="take-the-tour">Take the tour</h2>
    <div class="virtual-tour js-virtual-tour">
      <div class="tour-nav">
        <ul>
          <li><a href="#entrance-hall">Entrance Hall</a></li>
          <li><a href="#grand-staircase">Grand Staircase</a></li>
          <li><a href="#white-drawing-room">White Drawing Room</a></li>
          <li><a href="#cabinet-room">Cabinet Room</a></li>
          <li><a href="#terracotta-room">Terracotta Room</a></li>
          <li><a href="#pillared-room">Pillared Room</a></li>
          <li><a href="#small-dining-room">Small Dining Room</a></li>
          <li><a href="#state-dining-room">State Dining Room</a></li>
          <li><a href="#the-study">The Study</a></li>
          <li><a href="#the-garden">The Garden</a></li>
          <li><a href="#10-downing-street">10 Downing Street</a></li>
          <li><a href="#downing-street-approach">Downing Street Approach</a></li>
        </ul>
      </div>

      <div id="entrance-hall" data-tour-xml="image_001.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>Entrance Hall</h3>
          <p>Many famous feet have trodden across this entrance hall: from world leaders to sporting heroes. But this is also where the PM's staff enter each day to work among the myriad corridors and staircases which snake around the building. 10 Downing Street fulfils many roles – as meeting place, home and office. The Prime Minister does not have keys to Number 10 but there is always someone on duty to let him in.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="grand-staircase" data-tour-xml="image_003b.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>Grand Staircase</h3>
          <p>Sir <NAME> took up residence as Prime Minister in 1735 and wanted the design of Number 10 to match his status. He employed a famous architect of the day to renovate the crumbling building and many of the features he installed, including the central staircase, still exist. Portraits of every Prime Minister line the walls in chronological order, with the most recent incumbents at the top and group photographs from past Cabinets and Imperial Conferences at the bottom.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="white-drawing-room" data-tour-xml="image_004.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>White Drawing Room</h3>
          <p>Until the 1940s Prime Ministers and their wives kept the White Room for their private use. It was here that <NAME> kept his grand piano. The room contains works by one of the most important English landscape painters of the nineteenth century, <NAME>. These days it is often used as the backdrop for television interviews and is in regular use as a meeting room for Downing Street staff. The room links through to the Terracotta Room next door.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="cabinet-room" data-tour-xml="image_002.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>Cabinet Room</h3>
          <p><NAME> held Cabinet meetings every Tuesday but they were previously held on Thursday mornings. The only exceptions were during the Second World War and when the house was being renovated.</p>
          <p>The room was extended in 1796 by knocking a wall down and inserting columns to carry the extra span. The Cabinet room is separated from the rest of the house by soundproof doors. A terrorist bomb exploded in the garden of Number 10 in 1991, only a few metres from where <NAME> was chairing a Cabinet meeting.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="terracotta-room" data-tour-xml="image_006.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>Terracotta Room</h3>
          <p>This was used as the dining room when <NAME> was PM. The name of this room changes according to the colour it is painted. When <NAME> came to power it was the Blue Room and she had it re-decorated and re-named the Green Room. It is now painted terracotta. There are many famous works of art in this room, on loan from the Government Art Collection.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="pillared-room" data-tour-xml="image_007.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>Pillared Room</h3>
          <p>The Pillared Room is the largest of the three rooms and is used when international agreements are being signed or as the main staging area for receptions. This is where the England Rugby Union team was entertained after winning the World Cup in 2003. The inventor <NAME> used the room to demonstrate one of his new-fangled television sets to <NAME> and his children.</p>
          <p>The room contains a striking Persian carpet, copied from a 16th century original which can be found in the Victoria and Albert Museum</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="small-dining-room" data-tour-xml="image_008.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>Small Dining Room</h3>
          <p>The Small Dining Room was once known as the breakfast room. Prime Ministers and their families used this room to have their meals until the flat upstairs was renovated. This was a favourite room of Lloyd George and can hold up to 12 people.</p>

          <p>S<NAME> designed it in 1827 following a commission from PM Viscount Goderich. The most unusual feature of this room is the fireplace without a chimney breast. The flues used to get so hot that the substance holding the window together would melt, causing the glass to fall out.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="state-dining-room" data-tour-xml="image_011.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>State Dining Room</h3>
          <p>Double doors lead you from the Small Dining Room to the larger State Dining room, which is built over the original vaulted stone kitchen. As with the small dining room, this room was designed by <NAME> in 1827. On the 250th anniversary of Number 10, in 1985, all the surviving Prime Ministers had dinner together here. This room is used to host the PM's monthly press conference, where he is quizzed by the world's media.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="the-study" data-tour-xml="study.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>The Study</h3>
          <p>The study was a regular workplace for <NAME> and also <NAME> (now <NAME>), who worked on important documents held in her “red boxes” and held meetings with her officials, a tradition restored by <NAME>. Sir <NAME> used the room as sleeping quarters.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="the-garden" data-tour-xml="garden.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>The Garden</h3>
          <p>The Number 10 garden is in constant use.  Often used to host events it is kept in pristine condition by a small team of gardeners.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="10-downing-street" data-tour-xml="image_013.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>10 Downing Street</h3>
          <p>Hundreds of people enter 10 Downing Street every week to attend meetings and receptions and to hand petitions over to the Prime Minister’s Office.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="downing-street-approach" data-tour-xml="image_014.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>Downing Street Approach</h3>
          <p>Walking up Downing Street from Whitehall you have the imposing Foreign and Commonwealth building to your left and the Prime Minister’s residence on your right.</p><commit_msg>copy change on 10 downing st history page<commit_after><% page_title "History of 10 Downing Street" %>
<% page_class "histories-show" %>

<div class="block">
  <div class="inner-block">
    <header class="page-header">
      <h1 class="topics">
        <a href="/government/history">History</a>
      </h1>
      <h2>10 Downing Street</h2>
    </header>
  </div>
</div>

<div class="block content-list">
  <div class="inner-block">
    <%= image_tag 'history/buildings/number-10-300.jpg', alt: 'King Charles Street' %>
    <nav class="js-stick-at-top-when-scrolling">
      <h1>Contents</h1>
      <ol>
        <li><a href="#introduction">Introduction</a></li>
        <li><a href="#take-the-tour">Take the tour</a></li>
        <li><a href="#origins-and-early-inhabitants">Origins and Early Inhabitants</a></li>
        <li><a href="#emergence-of-downing-street">The Emergence of Downing Street</a></li>
        <li><a href="#pelham-to-pitt">Pelham to Pitt</a></li>
        <li><a href="#fall-and-rise">Fall and Rise of Number 10</a></li>
        <li><a href="#number-10-at-war">Number 10 at War</a></li>
        <li><a href="#restoration-and-modernisation">Restoration and Modernisation</a></li>
        <li><a href="#a-place-of-entertainment">A Place of Entertainment</a></li>
        <li><a href="#installations-at-number-10-timeline">Installations at Number 10 Timeline</a></li>
        <li><a href="#larry-chief-mouser">Larry, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet&nbsp;Office</a></li>
      </ol>
    </nav>
  </div>
</div>

<div class="block content-body">
  <div class="inner-block">
    <h2 id="introduction">Introduction &ndash; by Dr <NAME></h2>
    <p>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.</p>
    <p>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 of today, and the building up of the welfare state.</p>
    <p>Some of the most famous political figures of modern history have lived and worked in Number 10, including <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME>, <NAME> and <NAME>.</p>
    <p>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 entertains guests from Her Majesty The Queen 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.</p>
    <p>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 late 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 &ndash; the official residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.</p>

    <h2 id="take-the-tour">Take the tour</h2>
    <div class="virtual-tour js-virtual-tour">
      <div class="tour-nav">
        <ul>
          <li><a href="#entrance-hall">Entrance Hall</a></li>
          <li><a href="#grand-staircase">Grand Staircase</a></li>
          <li><a href="#white-drawing-room">White Drawing Room</a></li>
          <li><a href="#cabinet-room">Cabinet Room</a></li>
          <li><a href="#terracotta-room">Terracotta Room</a></li>
          <li><a href="#pillared-room">Pillared Room</a></li>
          <li><a href="#small-dining-room">Small Dining Room</a></li>
          <li><a href="#state-dining-room">State Dining Room</a></li>
          <li><a href="#the-study">The Study</a></li>
          <li><a href="#the-garden">The Garden</a></li>
          <li><a href="#10-downing-street">10 Downing Street</a></li>
          <li><a href="#downing-street-approach">Downing Street Approach</a></li>
        </ul>
      </div>

      <div id="entrance-hall" data-tour-xml="image_001.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>Entrance Hall</h3>
          <p>Many famous feet have trodden across this entrance hall: from world leaders to sporting heroes. But this is also where the PM's staff enter each day to work among the myriad corridors and staircases which snake around the building. 10 Downing Street fulfils many roles – as meeting place, home and office. The Prime Minister does not have keys to Number 10 but there is always someone on duty to let him in.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="grand-staircase" data-tour-xml="image_003b.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>Grand Staircase</h3>
          <p>Sir <NAME> took up residence as Prime Minister in 1735 and wanted the design of Number 10 to match his status. He employed a famous architect of the day to renovate the crumbling building and many of the features he installed, including the central staircase, still exist. Portraits of every Prime Minister line the walls in chronological order, with the most recent incumbents at the top and group photographs from past Cabinets and Imperial Conferences at the bottom.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="white-drawing-room" data-tour-xml="image_004.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>White Drawing Room</h3>
          <p>Until the 1940s Prime Ministers and their wives kept the White Room for their private use. It was here that <NAME> kept his grand piano. The room contains works by one of the most important English landscape painters of the nineteenth century, <NAME>. These days it is often used as the backdrop for television interviews and is in regular use as a meeting room for Downing Street staff. The room links through to the Terracotta Room next door.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="cabinet-room" data-tour-xml="image_002.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>Cabinet Room</h3>
          <p><NAME> held Cabinet meetings every Tuesday but they were previously held on Thursday mornings. The only exceptions were during the Second World War and when the house was being renovated.</p>
          <p>The room was extended in 1796 by knocking a wall down and inserting columns to carry the extra span. The Cabinet room is separated from the rest of the house by soundproof doors. A terrorist bomb exploded in the garden of Number 10 in 1991, only a few metres from where <NAME> was chairing a Cabinet meeting.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="terracotta-room" data-tour-xml="image_006.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>Terracotta Room</h3>
          <p>This was used as the dining room when <NAME> was PM. The name of this room changes according to the colour it is painted. When <NAME> came to power it was the Blue Room and she had it re-decorated and re-named the Green Room. It is now painted terracotta. There are many famous works of art in this room, on loan from the Government Art Collection.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="pillared-room" data-tour-xml="image_007.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>Pillared Room</h3>
          <p>The Pillared Room is the largest of the three rooms and is used when international agreements are being signed or as the main staging area for receptions. This is where the England Rugby Union team was entertained after winning the World Cup in 2003. The inventor <NAME> used the room to demonstrate one of his new-fangled television sets to <NAME> and his children.</p>
          <p>The room contains a striking Persian carpet, copied from a 16th century original which can be found in the Victoria and Albert Museum</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="small-dining-room" data-tour-xml="image_008.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>Small Dining Room</h3>
          <p>The Small Dining Room was once known as the breakfast room. Prime Ministers and their families used this room to have their meals until the flat upstairs was renovated. This was a favourite room of Lloyd George and can hold up to 12 people.</p>

          <p><NAME> designed it in 1827 following a commission from PM <NAME>. The most unusual feature of this room is the fireplace without a chimney breast. The flues used to get so hot that the substance holding the window together would melt, causing the glass to fall out.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="state-dining-room" data-tour-xml="image_011.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>State Dining Room</h3>
          <p>Double doors lead you from the Small Dining Room to the larger State Dining room, which is built over the original vaulted stone kitchen. As with the small dining room, this room was designed by <NAME> in 1827. On the 250th anniversary of Number 10, in 1985, all the surviving Prime Ministers had dinner together here. This room is used to host the PM's press conferences, where he is quizzed by the world's media.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="the-study" data-tour-xml="study.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>The Study</h3>
          <p>The study was a regular workplace for <NAME> and also <NAME> (now <NAME>), who worked on important documents held in her “red boxes” and held meetings with her officials, a tradition restored by <NAME>. Sir <NAME> used the room as sleeping quarters.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="the-garden" data-tour-xml="garden.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>The Garden</h3>
          <p>The Number 10 garden is in constant use.  Often used to host events it is kept in pristine condition by a small team of gardeners.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="10-downing-street" data-tour-xml="image_013.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>10 Downing Street</h3>
          <p>Hundreds of people enter 10 Downing Street every week to attend meetings and receptions and to hand petitions over to the Prime Minister’s Office.</p>
        </div>
      </div>

      <div id="downing-street-approach" data-tour-xml="image_014.xml" class="tour-info">
        <div class="tour-content">
          <h3>Downing Street Approach</h3>
          <p>Walking up Downing Street from Whitehall you have the imposing Foreign and Commonwealth building to your left and the Prime Minister’s residence on your right.</p>
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