Whitehall

Coordinates: 51°30′15″N 00°07′35″W / 51.50417°N 0.12639°W / 51.50417; -0.12639
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For other uses, see Whitehall (disambiguation).

Whitehall
Department of Health

Whitehall is a road and area in the

government
, and as the geographic name for the surrounding area.

The

Banqueting House
has survived. Whitehall was originally a wide road that led to the gates of the palace; the route to the south was widened in the 18th century, following the destruction of the palace, and the area was largely rebuilt for government offices.

As well as government buildings, the street is known for its memorial statues and monuments, including the UK's primary war memorial,

Trafalgar Studios) was formerly associated with a series of farces
.

Geography and name

The name Whitehall was used for several buildings in the Tudor period.[2] It either referred to a building made of light stone, or as a general term for any festival building. This included the Royal Palace of Whitehall, which in turn gave its name to the street.[3]

The street is about 0.4 miles (0.64 km) long and runs through the

Cenotaph, the road ahead being Parliament Street. Great Scotland Yard and Horse Guards Avenue branch off to the east, while Downing Street branches off to the west at the southern section of the street.[1]

The nearest tube stations are Charing Cross at the north end, and Westminster at the south. Numerous London bus routes run along Whitehall, including 12, 24, 88, 159 and 453.[4]

History

Map of Whitehall in 1680, showing the Palace of Whitehall and Scotland Yard. To the west of Holbein Gate, the road was known as The Street.

There has been a route connecting Charing Cross to Westminster since the

Lord Howard of Effingham and Edmund Spenser.[2][6]

The Palace of Whitehall, to the east of the road, was originally named York Palace, but was renamed during the reign of

Henry VIII.[a] The palace was redesigned in 1531–32 and became the King's main residence later in the decade. He married Anne Boleyn here in 1533, followed by Jane Seymour in 1536, and died at the palace in 1547. Charles I owned an extensive art collection at the palace[3] and several of William Shakespeare's plays had their first performances here.[8] It ceased to be the royal residence after 1689, when William III moved to Kensington Palace for his health to escape what had become dense urban surroundings. The palace was damaged by fire in 1691, following which the front entrance was redesigned by Sir Christopher Wren. In 1698, most of the vast palace burned to the ground accidentally after a fire started by a careless washerwoman.[3]

Wallingford House was constructed in 1572 by

Admiralty.[11] The Old Admiralty Buildings now sit on the house's site.[9]

Banqueting House (1622) on the left, William Kent's Treasury buildings (1733–37) on the right, the Holbein Gate
(1532, demolished 1759) at centre.

Banqueting House was built as an extension to the Palace of Whitehall in 1622 by Inigo Jones. It is the only surviving portion of the palace after it was burned down, and was the first Renaissance building in London.[12] It later became a museum to the Royal United Services Institute and has been opened to the public since 1963.[13]

his trial at Westminster Hall. Whitehall itself was a wide street and had sufficient space for a scaffold to be erected for the King's execution at Banqueting House.[2] He made a brief speech there before being beheaded.[14][b] Cromwell died at the Palace of Whitehall in 1658.[3]

During the Great Plague of London in 1665, people boarded coaches at Whitehall, then at the edge of urban London, in an attempt to escape. The King and court temporarily moved to Oxford to avoid the plague, while Samuel Pepys remarked in his diary on 29 June, "By water to Whitehall, where the Court is full of waggons and people ready to go out of town. This end of town every day grows very bad with plague".[16]

By the 18th century, traffic was struggling along the narrow streets south of Holbein Gate, which led to King Street Gate being demolished in 1723. Holbein Gate, in turn, was demolished in 1759. Meanwhile, Parliament Street was a side road alongside the palace, leading to the Palace of Westminster. After the Palace of Whitehall was destroyed, Parliament Street was widened to match Whitehall's width.[17] The present appearance of the street dates from 1899 after a group of houses between Downing Street and Great George Street were destroyed.[2]

On 8 March 1973, the IRA detonated a bomb in front of the Ministry of Agriculture building in Whitehall, injuring a number of bystanders.[18] On 7 February 1991, the IRA launched a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Prime Minister John Major and his cabinet.

Government buildings

Map of Whitehall and surrounding streets, showing government buildings

By the time the palace was destroyed, separation of crown and state had become important, with Parliament being necessary to control military requirements and pass laws. The government wanted to be some distance from the monarch, and the buildings around Whitehall, physically separated from St James's Palace by St James's Park, seemed to be a good place for ministers to work.[19]

The Horse Guards building was designed by William Kent, and built during the 1750s on a former tiltyard site, replacing an earlier guard-house erected during the Civil War. The building includes an archway for coach traffic and two pedestrian arches that provide access between Whitehall and Horse Guards Parade. The central archway is marked with "SMF" and "StMW", and denotes the boundary between St Martin-in-the-Fields and St Margaret's church parish boundaries.[20]

During the 19th century, as private leases ran out on residential buildings, ownership reverted to the Crown, which began to use them as public offices.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office[2] and the Government Offices Great George Street (HM Treasury, HM Revenue and Customs and parts of the Cabinet Office).[2]

View of the Horse Guards Building from Whitehall, showing the three arches that link it to Horse Guards Parade

Irish Nationalists in 1883, and an explosion from a Fenian terrorist attack on 30 May 1884 blew a hole in Scotland Yard's outer wall and destroyed the neighbouring Rising Sun pub. The headquarters was moved away from Whitehall in 1890.[23]

Provisional IRA fired mortars from a van parked in Whitehall towards No. 10, one of which exploded in the gardens.[24][25]

Additional security measures have been put in place along Whitehall to protect government buildings, following a £25 million streetscape project undertaken by Westminster City Council. The project has provided wider pavements and better lighting, along with installing hundreds of concrete and steel security barriers.[26]

Houses of Parliament undergo a refurbishment and modernisation programme.[27]

Memorials

Whitehall, looking north in 1953, with the Earl Haig Memorial in the middle of the carriageway.

Statues and memorials have been built on and around Whitehall, commemorating military victories and leaders. The Cenotaph was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and erected at the southern end in 1919, commemorating victory in World War I and later used as a memorial for both World Wars. It is the main war memorial in Britain and an annual service is held here on Remembrance Sunday, led by the reigning monarch and leading politicians.[28] In 2005, a national Monument to the Women of World War II was erected a short distance north of the Cenotaph in the middle of the Whitehall carriageway.[29]

The Royal Tank Regiment Memorial is at the north east end of Whitehall, where Whitehall Court meets Whitehall Place. Erected in 2000, it commemorates the use of tanks in both World Wars and depicts five World War II tank crew members. The Gurkha Memorial is to the south of this, on Horse Guards Avenue to the east of Whitehall.[30]

Whitehall is also home to six other monuments. From north to south, these are of

Liberal Unionist Party and Unionists leader Spencer Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire, Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig (known as the Earl Haig Memorial),[c] Field Marshal Montgomery (commander of the 8th Army, the 21st Army Group and Chief of the Imperial General Staff),[3] William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim, Commander of the 14th Army and Governor-General of Australia,[32] and Alan Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff.[33]

Culture

Trafalgar Studios, opened in 1930 and is a Grade II listed building
.

The

Trafalgar Studios in 2004.[35]

Because of its importance as the centre of the British government, several political comedies are based in and around Whitehall. These include the BBC television series Yes Minister and The Thick of It.[36]

Whitehall is one of three purple squares on the British Monopoly board, along with Pall Mall and Northumberland Avenue. All three streets converge at Trafalgar Square.[8]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ Shakespeare's Henry VIII mentions the name change in Act IV, scene 1 : "You must no more call it York Place—that is past: For since the Cardinal fell that title's lost; 'Tis now the King's, and called Whitehall"[7]
  2. ^ The English Civil War Society commemorate the death of Charles I annually on the nearest Sunday to 30 January, the anniversary of the execution. The society retraces the route the King took from St James's Palace to the Banqueting House, where a wreath is laid at the site of the scaffold.[15]
  3. ^ The memorial, designed by Alfred Frank Hardiman and unveiled on 10 November 1937, proved controversial as it took several attempts to design a realistic head and horse. Haig's widow refused to attend the opening ceremony.[31]

Citations

  1. ^ a b "Derby Gate, London to Trafalgar Square". Google Maps. Archived from the original on 7 March 2019. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Weinreb et al. 2008, p. 1019.
  3. ^ a b c d e Weinreb et al. 2008, p. 1020.
  4. ^ "Central London Bus Map" (PDF). Transport for London. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 March 2017. Retrieved 12 June 2016.
  5. ^ Shepherd 2012, p. 37.
  6. ^ a b Brown 2009, p. 120.
  7. ^ Thornbury, Walter (1878). "Whitehall: Historical remarks". Old and New London. 3. London: 337–361. Archived from the original on 22 April 2021. Retrieved 6 July 2016.
  8. ^ a b Moore 2003, p. 45.
  9. ^ a b Richardson 2000, p. 100.
  10. ^ Roger Lockyer, Buckingham (London: Longman, 1981), p. 119.
  11. ^ a b Thornbury, Walter (1878). "Whitehall : The Western Side". Old and New London. 3. London: 383–394. Archived from the original on 22 April 2021. Retrieved 4 July 2016.
  12. ^ Weinreb et al. 2008, p. 39,1020.
  13. ^ Weinreb et al. 2008, p. 40.
  14. ^ Weinreb et al. 2008, p. 39.
  15. ^ Shepherd 2012, p. 167.
  16. ^ Brown 2009, p. 107.
  17. ^ Weinreb et al. 2008, p. 626.
  18. ^ "From the archives: Ten held after Provo bombs blast London". The Guardian. 9 March 2009. Archived from the original on 20 May 2024. Retrieved 25 April 2022.
  19. ^ Shepherd 2012, p. 191.
  20. ^ a b Shepherd 2012, p. 208.
  21. ^ "Department of Energy and Climate Change". UK Government properties database. Archived from the original on 14 November 2017. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
  22. ^ "Cabinet Office". HM Government. Archived from the original on 18 December 2020. Retrieved 4 July 2016.
  23. ^ Weinreb et al. 2008, p. 582.
  24. ^ Weinreb et al. 2008, pp. 246–7.
  25. ISBN 0-312-17730-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
    )
  26. ^ "Whitehall". Stone Restoration Services. Archived from the original on 1 July 2017. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
  27. ^ "Listed Whitehall building falls victim to parliament move". The Times. 15 October 2018. Archived from the original on 15 October 2018. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
  28. ^ Weinreb et al. 2008, pp. 141, 1020.
  29. ^ "Memorial to war women unveiled". BBC News. 9 July 2005. Archived from the original on 30 May 2020. Retrieved 3 July 2016.
  30. ^ Matthews 2012, p. 18.
  31. ^ Matthews 2012, pp. 20–21.
  32. ^ Matthews 2012, p. 21.
  33. ^ Matthews 2012, p. 22.
  34. ^ Brown 2009, p. 78.
  35. ^ "Trafalgar Studios". trafalgar-studios.co.uk. Archived from the original on 22 April 2021. Retrieved 5 July 2016.
  36. ^ Johnston, Philip (14 December 2009). "Yes, minister, we can get out of the thick of it". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 12 July 2016.

Sources

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Whitehall.

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