'Royal Horse Guards. St James' Park.', 1830 (c)

Engraving by H Adlard after J Marchant, 1830 (c).

Horse Guards, was so called after the mounted troops who have formed the sovereign's Life Guard on this spot 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. The Georgian War Office, a small organisation with a staff of a dozen or so clerks, was also housed in the building. However, much of the detailed day-to-day administration of the army was handled at regimental level. Before 1841, the only access to the royal residences of St James's Palace and Buckingham Palace was through the archway of Horse Guards. It remains the official entrance to the two palaces, for which reason The Queen's Life Guard is still mounted here.

The 'new' Horse Guards building, seen here, was designed in the Palladian style by the famous architect, William Kent (1685-1748) and constructed between 1750 and 1756.