2019-10-01 Discover Britain

THE INSIDER

Facts, figures and stories about the official residence of the British Prime Minister

ALLSTAR

PICTURE

LIBRARY/ALAMY/

IANDAGNALL

COMPUTING/PIERO

CRUCIATTI

10 DOWNING STREET

284

Years since the first British Prime

Minister, Sir Robert Walpole

[above], moved into Number 10

37

Angle (in degrees) that the zero

on Number 10’s door is painted

42

Length (in feet) of the State

Dining Room, the largest room

in Number 10

7.5

Distance (in inches) that

Number 10’s crooked façade

had bent from vertical

1,000,000

Cost (in £GBP, approx) of major

restoration work in 1963

IN NUMBERS

STRANGE

BUT TRUE

A brown-and-white tabby cat

called Larry [below] is the official

“Chief Mouser to the Cabinet

Office”. There has been a cat in

residence at the seat of British

government on and off for five

centuries – Churchill’s official

feline was called Nelson.

W

hen Boris Johnson became

the Prime Minister of the

United Kingdom on 24

July 2019, he assumed an

office and official residence at 10 Downing

Street. This small London cul-de-sac has

been central to British government life ever

since 1735, when Sir Robert Walpole

• the de facto first Prime Minister of
  Great Britain since 1721 – was offered the
  property by King George II as a gift for his
  services to the nation. Keen to not profit
  personally, Walpole insisted it was instead
  given to the office of the Treasury.
  The original street was named after Sir
  George Downing, a miserly British diplomat
  who was granted the lease on a road next to

time in office from 1908 to 1916. Likewise,

while Number 10 looks like a modest

townhouse, it actually fronts a labyrinth of

some 100 rooms that extends into adjacent

buildings, as well as a half-acre garden.

Reconfigured by architect Raymond Erith

in the early 1960s, walls, floors and rotten

columns were replaced, while new additions

included a room looking out onto Downing

Street and a veranda at Number 11 – the

adjacent house used by the Chancellor.

Despite its eccentric evolution, Number

10 remains, along with the White House,

the most important political building in the

Western world. And as the nation gears up

for Brexit, more eyes than ever before will

be poised on that famous front door. n

Whitehall Palace. Downing employed

architect Sir Christopher Wren to build

a row of houses on the street, though he

skimped on the costs. Winston Churchill

would later write that Number 10 was

“shaky and lightly built by the profiteering

contractor whose name they bear.”

For a building that houses the official

residence of the British Prime Minister, it is

surprisingly deceptive. The black bricks are

actually yellow, yet were painted to hide

years of pollution, while the letterbox is just

for show – it doesn’t open and 24-hour

security sits behind the door instead. In fact,

the famous black door hasn’t always been

black either – it was briefly painted dark

green during PM Herbert Henry Asquith’s

DID YOU KNOW?

While you can’t stand beside 10

Downing Street’s famous black door

for security reasons, a lookalike at

nearby 10 Adam Street provides a

good photo opportunity. Just off the

Strand, it belongs to a terraced house

designed by Robert Adam.