When was downing street gated off

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 , 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 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 s, 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.

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 , 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 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 , Edward Drummond, secretary to Prime Minister Robert Peel — , 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 s. 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 By the time Benjamin Disraeli became Prime Minister, the house was in poor shape.

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.

During his occupancy in , 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 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.

The custom of the Prime Minister and other ministers donating books to the library continues to this day. Central heating was installed in 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.

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 The Cabinet Room at Number 10 was the nerve centre of Britain's war effort.

Asquith had been forced to take on the additional role of Secretary of State for War following the resignation of the incumbent in March , but quickly appointed Lord Kitchener following the outbreak of war. On 15 April , 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 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 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. In the first days of its existence, the War Cabinet met 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. 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. Lloyd George made an appearance at one of the first floor windows to acknowledge them. During the s 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 , 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. The Munich Agreement was signed and war — for now — had been averted.

Chamberlain gave the speech a second time, from a first floor window of Number 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 , Chamberlain broadcast to the nation from the Cabinet Room at Number 10, announcing that the country was now at war with Germany.

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 , the intense bombing period known as the Blitz began. Churchill was dining in the Garden Rooms when the air raid began. As he recalled in his memoir Their Finest Hour :. 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. 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 , 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 , 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. 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. Russian Dutch Japanese Swedish Danish 5.

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Updating list Reviewed September 7, It's all locked up. Thank MichaelWHansen. John S. Reviewed September 2, Nothing to see here - move on please! Date of experience: July Ask John S about Downing Street. Thank John S. Reviewed August 29, via mobile A large Gate! Ask Farquhar1 about Downing Street. Sam B. Reviewed August 19, Worth walking by if in the area.

Ask Sam B about Downing Street. Reviewed August 19, As close as you can get! Regular road vehicle access was restricted in when a barrier was installed, but pedestrians could still walk up to the famous door and get their photo taken.

In , low level railings were installed across the entrance in response to IRA terrorism and pedestrian access essentially ended at that point. The council, when granting planning permission noted that technically the gates are temporary and demountable , and wanted them moved slightly back so that they were flush with the surrounding buildings.

They were nearly removed when Tony Blair became Prime Minister, but he was advised against doing so for security reasons, especially as the building had only recently undergone repairs following the IRA mortar attack in Over the years, the gates have themselves become a focal point for protests — as people try to storm the barricades by climbing over them or chaining themselves to them. While the gates protect 10 Downing Street, they have become a counter point to that famous door.