CELEBRATED HOUSE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 111, 6 November 1935, Page 5

CELEBRATED HOUSE

NO. 10, DOWNING STREET

One of the most celebrated houses in Britain —No. 10 Downing Street, London —recently completed two centuries of use as an official residence, says the "Daily Express." This home of the English Prime Ministers, the modest exterior of which never fails to surprise the foreign visitor, had Sir Robert Walpole as its first occupant. About the year 1698 Downing Street —named . after Sir Robert Downing, a former Secretary to the Treasury— was described as "a pretty open place, especially at the upper end, where are four or five very large and well-built houses fit'for persons of honour and quality; each house having a pleasant prospect into St. James' Park, with a Tarras walk." "No. 10," as known today, was on part of the forfeited property of Lee, Lord Lichfield, who retired with James 11, to whom he was Master of the Horse. The house thus belonged to the Crown. King George I gave it to Baron Bothmar, the Hanoverian Minister, for life, and, on the baron's death, George II offered the house to Sir Robert Walpole. Sir Robert, for whom it was rebuilt, accepted it only lor his office of First Lord of the Treasury, "to which post he got it annexed for ever." According to a note in the "London Daily Post" of Tuesday, September 23, 1735: "Yesterday, the Rt. Hon. Sir Robert Walpole.. with his lady and family, removed from his house in St. James' Square, to his new house adjoining to the Treasury in St. James' - Park. MANY TENANTS. During the last two centuries "No. 10" has passed through fifty-five different periods of tenancy. Sir Robert Walpole might still recognise his house, in spite of the inevitable alterations. The present Prime Minister's bedroom is the chamber in which Lady.Walpole died in 1738, and' Sir Robert's parlour is now known as, "Secretary's Room B." The house has cost a great deal in repairs—an expense which William Pitt, who lived at "No. 10" for seventeen years, attributed to the "bad foundations." Incidentally, it was during Pitt's tenancy, in 1786, that Robert Smith wrote to Wilberforce: "The butcher's bill only is £96. Can it be possible that 38001b of meat could be dressed in 28 days? The poulterer's, fishmonger's, and, indeed, all the bills exceed anything I could have imagined. The meat is sent in great quantities, without particulars being mentioned. On Saturday there is generally three or four hundredweight." After Earl Grey's resignation in 1834 Prime Ministers did not use the Downing Street house—-although it was still an official residence—until 1877. Then Disraeli took possession, moving from Whitehall Gardens. Since that \ time the Prime Minister has always been found at "No. 10." One occupant described it as "the . most uncofhfortable house in London," • and until a quarter of a century ago it had no bathroom.