Victorian London - Publications - History - The Queen's London : a Pictorial and Descriptive Record of the Streets, Buildings, Parks and Scenery of the Great Metropolis, 1896 - The Horse Guards

The Horse Guards - photograph

THE HORSE GUARDS.

It must be a painful ordeal at first to shy Life Guardsmen, if any such there be, to act as sentinel at the entry to the Commander-in-Chief's office; for the curious generally halt to take stock of them, and audibly to criticise them, and when they are relieved a crowd is invariably attracted. The building is picturesque from its very complexity. It was erected in 1753, on the site of an old Tilt-yard, and owes its name to the fact that it was once used as a guard-house for the palace of Whitehall. The short cut through the archway from Whitehall to St. James's Park is much used by pedestrians, but only royal and privileged carriages are permitted to pass through. The War Office, of course, is in Pall Mall.