East Front of Horse Guards, London, 1810

Engraving by Robert Cooper, 1810.

Street scene with civilian traffic on Whitehall in the foreground and the East Front of Horse Guards beyond.

Horse Guards, located in central London, was named after the mounted troops who have formed the sovereign's Life Guard since the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660. It grew from a simple building that housed troops on duty as escorts to the King to become the headquarters of the British Army in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.