page_title: Garden of 10 and 11 Downing Street
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Garden of 10 and 11 Downing Street / History
caption_attribution_description: On Saturday 9 June 2012 the garden at 10 Downing Street was opened to 25 members of the public as part of Open Garden Squares Weekend. Take a virtual tour of the 10 Downing Street garden.
context_page_description: The garden of 10 and 11 Downing Street is an L-shaped garden 0.5 acres in size behind the official residences of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 10 and 11 Downing Street in the Whitehall district of the City of Westminster in central London. The garden has been gradually developed over the 20th century under successive Prime Ministers.
context_section_description: The terrace and garden have provided a casual setting for many gatherings of First Lords with foreign dignitaries, Cabinet ministers, guests, and staff. Prime Minister Tony Blair, for example, hosted a farewell reception in 2007 for his staff on the terrace. John Major announced his 1995 resignation as leader of the Conservative Party in the garden. Churchill called his secretaries the "garden girls" because their offices overlook the garden. It was also the location of the first press conference announcing the Coalition Government between David Cameron's Conservatives and Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats. In September 1941 Winston and Clementine Churchill drank champagne in the garden with five 'young Frenchmen' who had escaped from France in a canoe before arriving in Eastbourne after having spent 30 hours in the English Channel. Blair held a press conference with Bill Clinton in the garden. Press conferences at the White House are frequently held at the White House Rose Garden. It is believed that the similarity of the occasion has given rise to the 'rose garden' nickname which Victoria Summerley, writing in Great Gardens of London feels is "inaccurate".
  In 2012 Michael Craig Martin loaned his 2011 sculpture of a large red lightbulb, Bulb, for installation in the garden. Barbara Hepworth's 1968 sculpture Hollow Form with Inner Form is situated in the garden, on loan from the Government Art Collection.
  In October 1929 The Times reported on the retirement after 40 years of Downing Street's head gardener, Harry Simpson. Having originally started as a gardener in St James Park, he had worked in Downing Street under every Prime Minister from William Gladstone to Ramsay Macdonald. The main gardener at Downing Street, Paul Schooling, was awarded the British Empire Medal in the 2010s for his 31 years service to the Royal Parks and his work at Downing Street over 26 years during the premierships of five Prime Ministers.
  In a 1937 article for The Countryman, Neville Chamberlain related that he once spotted a rare leopard moth in the garden, and put a nesting box in the trees, which was later inhabited by a pair of blue tits. Chamberlain was dismayed to find that one of the blue tits's three eggs had later disappeared.
  An item in The Times diary in 1989 reported that Margaret Thatcher had believed she had heard a nightingale in the garden. The Sun journalist David Kemp recorded the bird who was then identified as a song thrush by the RSPB.
  The garden cost The Royal Parks £29,137 in half-yearly maintenance in the six months after the 2010 general election.
  The garden has been used for numerous events honouring various public bodies. A party to mark the 100th anniversary of the Brownies in 2014. Cameron and Barack Obama held a barbecue for military personnel in the garden in 2011.
  A special edition of the BBC Radio 4 programme Gardeners' Question Time was broadcast from Downing Street in December 2016 and featured an interview with the head gardener of the 10 Downing Street garden.
  The garden has been opened to the public on six occasions as part of the Open Garden Squares Weekend organised by the London Parks & Gardens Trust.
caption: The view of the garden from the balcony
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