The photograph is number seventeen of a set of seventeen taken for the architects Verity and Hunt. In 1884 there was an open competition to design a new War Office and Admiralty Building. Verity and Hunt were one of nine architectural firms whose designs were chosen for closer inspection, but they eventually lost out to Leeming and Leeming of Halifax.
The competition was extensively covered in The Builder, and a selection of drawings were engraved and published. These included a ground and first floor plan, a perspective and a section produced by Verity and Hunt. These drawings were re-photographed by Bedford Lemere for The Builder for this purpose (see BL05405 - BL05408 in the Bedford Lemere daybook). The images appear in The Builder Volume XLVII Number 2173 on Saturday 27 September 1884.
This is part of the Series: HBL01/01 Series Of Photographic Negatives And Prints; within the Collection: HBL01 The Bedford Lemere Collection
Source: Historic England Archive
Victorian Government Office