The Admiralty and the Admiralty Screen
THE ADMIRALTY AND THE ADMIRALTY SCREEN, HORSE GUARDS PARADE SW1
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- I
- List Entry Number:
- 1066099
- Date first listed:
- 05-Feb-1970
- List Entry Name:
- The Admiralty and the Admiralty Screen
- Statutory Address:
- THE ADMIRALTY AND THE ADMIRALTY SCREEN, HORSE GUARDS PARADE SW1
Location
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Images of England Project
- Date:
- 2001-09-04
- Reference:
- IOE01/05427/29
- Rights:
- © Mr Stephen Hodgson. Source: Historic England Archive
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- I
- List Entry Number:
- 1066099
- Date first listed:
- 05-Feb-1970
- List Entry Name:
- The Admiralty and the Admiralty Screen
- Statutory Address 1:
- THE ADMIRALTY AND THE ADMIRALTY SCREEN, HORSE GUARDS PARADE SW1
- Statutory Address 2:
- THE ADMIRALTY AND THE ADMIRALTY SCREEN, WHITEHALL SW1
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- THE ADMIRALTY AND THE ADMIRALTY SCREEN, HORSE GUARDS PARADE SW1
- Statutory Address:
- THE ADMIRALTY AND THE ADMIRALTY SCREEN, WHITEHALL SW1
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
- County:
- Greater London Authority
- District:
- City of Westminster (London Borough)
- Parish:
- Non Civil Parish
- National Grid Reference:
- TQ 30038 80202
Details
TQ 3080 SW CITY OF WESTMINSTER WHITEHALL SWl 83/62 (West side) 5.2.70 The Admiralty and Admiralty Screen
GV I
Government offices. 1723-26 by Thomas Ripley, Comptroller of the Works; the Admiralty screen 1759-61, innovatory early work by Robert Adam. The Admiralty built of brown brick with Portland stone dressings and portico, slate roof. A clumsy classical design, hovering between the Baroque and the Palladian, with a cramped giant portico; U-shaped on plan. 3 tall storeys and dormered attic. 7- window wide main block with portico and 8-window deep wings with 2-window wide ends to Whitehall. Architraved and corniced doorway to centre under giant Ionic portico with pediment containing cartouche carved with Admiralty insignia. Recessed glazing bar sashes with slightly cambered gauged brick arches. Channelled stone quoins; 1st floor sill band; heavy entablature with parapet. Robert Adam's Portland stone screen to courtyard a monumental, severely Roman facade; central carriage archway framed by pylon-piers with their parapets surmounted by sea horses and flanking screens of Tuscan columns against blind walls supporting entablature, terminating in slightly advanced pedimented pavilions with blind niches; the pediments containing carved reliefs of man o' war prows in the Roman rostral manner. The interior of Ripley's Admiralty (originally largely residential accommodation for the Lord of the Admiralty with a board room and few offices) retains a number of good interiors: entrance hall with coupled pilasters and central niche containing nearly life size model of the statue on Nelson's column by Baily; vaulted corridor behind hall (repeated on 1st floor)with plasterwork panels rather in Vanbrugh manner; staircase at south end with stone steps and wrought iron balustrade, lit by glazed oval dome of 1785-87 contemporary with S. P. Cockerell's elegant work at Admiralty House q.v., next door; the Board Room at the south end would appear to have reset panelled interior from the previous Admiralty building on the site of 1695, the panels articulated by richly carved fluted Corinthian pilasters supporting enriched carved entablature; the marble chimney piece has windcompass overmantel of c.1695, probably by Robert Norden, framed by superbly carved pendant trophies and garlands with nautical instrument motifs very likely by Grinling Gibbons; the coved plasterwork ceiling of 1789; etc. N.B. for Admiralty Offices see The Mall.
R. C. H. M. Survey of London; vol XVI History of the King's Works; vol V
Listing NGR: TQ3003880202
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 207593
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Sources
Books and journals
Survey of London in Charing Cross the Parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields Part 1: Volume 16 , Vol. 16, (1935)
Mordaunt Crook, H, Downes, K, Newman, J, The History of the Kings Works in The History of the Kings Works 1660-1782, Vol. 5, (1976)
Legal
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Map
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 09-Jun-2026 at 17:02:25.
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