Rescue excavations by the Ministry of Works and the London Museum took place between 1961 and 1963 to the west of Whitehall, on the site of the Old Treasury, the Privy Council Offices, the Cabinet Offices and No 10 Downing Street. The site extended from Downing Street on the south to the Horseguards Parade on the north, and from St James’s Park on the west to Whitehall on the east.

The site showed continuous occupation from the 9th century to the present day, with traces of prehistoric and Roman activity. The middle Saxon riverside settlement on the southern edge of Lundenwic became by the Norman period a roadside ‘ribbon’ development of inns and tenements between Charing and Westminster. In 1531 the area was cleared of buildings to provide recreational facilities for Henry VIII’s new palace of Whitehall. This paper – which deals only with the Tudor and later structures – is the first in a series of three. Subsequent papers will describe (a) the prehistoric, Roman and medieval features, (b) the portable finds of all periods.

In this report the evidence both from excavation and from the recording of standing buildings is correlated with copious documentary and cartographic information about the site. Extensive standing remains and foundations were uncovered of the tennis courts, bowling alley, lodgings and park wall, which with the tiltyard, pheasant yard and cockpit provided sport for Henry VIII and his court (then accommodated in the main palace on the riverside to the east). The park side complex, subsequently known as the ‘Cockpit’, was designed to be displayed within the context of formal gardens, orchards, and, of course, the royal hunting park of St James. A reassessment of the Tudor development has revealed the symmetry and order of Henry VIII’s original master plan.

During Elizabeth’s reign little structural work was carried out. Rather more rebuilding occurred under James I, and particularly after the restoration of Charles II, but by now the principal role of the west side of Whitehall was no longer recreation but accommodation. Substantial portions of the Cockpit and other structures were converted into lodgings distributed among members of the royal family or people to whom the king owed favours.

The fire of 1698, which destroyed the main palace, effectively marks the end of the courtier occupation of the Cockpit side, which from then on became increasingly used by the various offices of state. The most notable building, Kent’s Treasury, was completed in 1736. The major development schemes of John Soane in 1824 and Charles Barry in 1844 finally gave an architectural coherence to what had become the premier group of government offices in the country. Yet incorporated into the 19th-century façades were substantial remains of the Tudor and later palace buildings. The same process of conversion rather than total rebuilding also occurred at No 10 Downing Street, which developed from a modest pair of back-to-back houses used by the First Lord of the Treasury in the 18th century.

The piecemeal architectural development of the site has been a major archaeological bonus. It ensured that large areas were virtually free of basements, with the resulting preservation of stratification, structures and major groups of archaeological material. The middle Saxon site – to be described in the second report in this series – is one of the most important in London, in terms both of the structural remains preserved and of the large-scale associated groups of pottery and small finds. The late medieval pit groups, particularly those of the 15th and early 16th centuries are outstanding. Material from the palace development is also abundant, but mainly from the periods when the Cockpit side was a fashionable residential area for courtiers, notably during the 17th century. Important cesspit groups are similarly to be associated with the use of the Privy Council offices, Kent’s Treasury and the last private residence, Dorset House, during the 18th century. These finds – the subject of a future report – are in the collections of the Museum of London, with private displays at the Privy Council Offices.

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