Editing Downing Street (section)

== Houses ==
{{See also|Townhouse (Great Britain)}}
[[File:Downing Street.jpg|thumb|right|Downing Street looking west. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is on the left, the red house is No.&nbsp;12, the dark houses are No.&nbsp;11 and No.&nbsp;10 (nearer, and partially obscured), and the building on the right is the [[Charles Barry|Barry]] wing of the [[Cabinet Office]], which has its main frontage to Whitehall.]]
[[File:Corner of Downing St and Whitehall, London - May 2008.jpg|thumb|A corner at Downing Street and Whitehall]]
[[File:David Cameron outside No 10.jpg|thumb|Prime Minister [[David Cameron]] in 2014.  Press announcements are regularly held in the street, as here.]]
*'''1–8 Downing Street''' were the houses between Number 9 and [[Whitehall]] that were taken over by the government and demolished in 1825 to allow the construction of a new building, designed by John Sloane, to house the Privy Council Office, and the Board of Trade.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-03-24 |title=Comings and goings: the other houses of Downing Street - The History of Parliament |url=https://historyofparliament.com/2022/03/24/the-other-houses-of-downing-street/ |access-date=2025-04-30 |website=historyofparliament.com |language=en-US}}</ref>
*'''[[9 Downing Street]]''' is the location of the [[Downing Street Press Briefing Room]]. It formerly held the offices for previous ministerial departments which have since been dissolved or moved. Since 2014 it has housed the offices of the Chief Whip, though their official address remained No. 12.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/matthew-d-ancona-michael-gove-is-now-chief-whip-to-the-nation-9609101.html|title=Matthew d'Ancona: Michael Gove is now Chief Whip to the nation|newspaper=The Evening Standard|date=16 July 2014|access-date=13 September 2022}}</ref> 
* '''[[10 Downing Street]]''' is the official residence of the [[First Lord of the Treasury]], the [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom]]. The two roles have been filled by the same person since the 1720s with almost no exceptions. It has fulfilled this role since 1735. Originally three houses, Number 10 was offered to [[Robert Walpole|Sir Robert Walpole]] by [[George II of Great Britain|King George II]] in 1732 and now contains approximately 100 rooms. A private residence occupies the third floor and there is a kitchen in the basement. The other floors contain offices and conference, reception, sitting and dining rooms where the Prime Minister works, and where government ministers, national leaders and foreign dignitaries are met and entertained. At the rear is an interior courtyard and a terrace overlooking a garden of 0.5 acres (2,000 m<sup>2</sup>). Other residents of 10 Downing Street are the [[Spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|Spouse of the Prime Minister]] and family, [[Downing Street Director of Communications]] and [[Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office]].
* '''[[11 Downing Street]]''' has been the official residence of the [[Second Lord of the Treasury]], the [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]] since 1828. The residence was built alongside the official residence of the Prime Minister at [[10 Downing Street|Number 10]] in 1682.
*'''[[12 Downing Street]]''', formerly the Chief Whip's Office, houses the Prime Minister's Press Office, Strategic Communications Unit and Information and Research Unit. In the 1820s it was occupied by the [[Judge Advocate General (United Kingdom)|Judge Advocate-General]], although it remained in private ownership. It entered government hands when purchased by the [[East India Company]] in 1863, and was occupied by the marine and railway departments of the [[Board of Trade]]. It was badly damaged by fire in 1879, and underwent further changes.
*'''13 Downing Street''' was originally part of 12 Downing Street before the housing area was partially re-built and re-numbered in 1876.
* '''14 Downing Street''' formerly closed off the western end of the street. It was leased as a town house from 1723 to 1797. It was acquired by [[the Crown]] in 1798, and was used by the [[War Office]] and [[Colonial Office]] in the 19th century. Some parts were demolished in the 1860s, and by 1876 it had been removed completely.
* '''15–20 Downing Street''', long since demolished, were at one time houses leading up to [[Horse Guards Road]]. 15-16 formerly housed the [[Foreign Office]], which also occupied two houses on the south side of the street. 18 was occupied by the West India Department of the Colonial Office and 20 was occupied by the Tithe Commission.

The houses at the end of the street were arranged around Downing Square.

There used to be a public house, the Rose and Crown, in Downing Street. In 1830 the tenant was a Mr Dixon.<ref>Morning Advertiser 07 August 1830</ref>

Throughout the history of these houses, ministers have lived by agreement in whatever rooms they thought necessary. On some occasions Number 11 has been occupied not by the Chancellor of the Exchequer but by the individual considered to be the nominal deputy Prime Minister (whether or not they actually took the title); this was particularly common in coalition governments. Sometimes a minister only uses the Downing Street flat for formal occasions and lives elsewhere.

In 1881, [[William Ewart Gladstone]] claimed residence in numbers 10, 11 and 12 for himself and his family. He was both Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister at the time.

After the [[1997 United Kingdom general election|1997 general election]], in which [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] took power, a swap was carried out by the new incumbents of the two titles; [[Tony Blair]] being a married man with three children living at home, while his counterpart [[Gordon Brown]] was unmarried at the time of taking up his post. Although Number 10 was the Prime Minister's official residence and contained the prime ministerial offices, Blair and his family actually moved into the more spacious Number 11, while Brown lived in the more meagre apartments of Number 10. This was the second time this had occurred; [[Stafford Northcote]] lived in Number 10 at one point, while [[Benjamin Disraeli]] occupied Number 11. That was for precisely the same reason—at the time, Number 10 was the more spacious apartment and Sir Stafford had a larger family. Blair and Brown's arrangement continued between Brown (at Number 11) and [[Alistair Darling]] (at Number 10), and continued in the [[Cameron–Clegg coalition|Cameron ministry]] (with [[David Cameron]] at Number 11 and [[George Osborne]] at Number 10) and under the [[premiership of Theresa May]], with [[Theresa May]] at Number 11 and [[Philip Hammond]] at Number 10.<ref>[https://www.standard.co.uk/news/downing-st-we-d-really-rather-not-6471125.html This is London — Downing St? We’d really rather not] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100521010632/http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23835688-downing-st-wed-really-rather-not.do |date=21 May 2010 }}</ref> Boris Johnson similarly resided at Number 11.<ref>[https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1268124/Boris-Johnson-home-where-does-Boris-Johnson-live-Chequers-where-is-map Where does Boris Live?]</ref>