Club (Conservative) at the corner. Flanking the bridge is the late J. L. Thornycroft's fine group showing Boadicea in her chariot. Westminster Bridge (Plan II. E. 9), one of the widest and handsomest bridges in Europe, consists of seven low segmental iron arches, supported on granite piers. The central arch has a span of 120 ft., the others of 114 ft. It is 1,160 ft. long and 85 ft. wide, the footways being each 15 ft. across. The bridge is almost level throughout. It was opened in 1862, and cost a quarter of a million. Wordsworth wrote of the view from the bridge of his day : "Earth has not anything to show more fair"; and dull indeed would he be of soul who could fail to admire it still more now. Looking city-ward we have the noble sweep of the Embankment, lined by handsome hotels and offices, including the Hôtel Cecil, the Savoy, and Somerset House. The heterogeneous wharves and factories that occupy the other bank serve as a useful foil to all this grandeur, nor, in spite of their griminess, do they by any means lack picturesqueness. Looking from the other side of the bridge (up river) we have immediately to the right the Houses of Parliament, with the famous "Terrace," where legislators consunie inordinate quantities of strawberries and cream, and woman openly asserts her defiance of the convention which excludes her from any share in the making of the country's laws. Electric tramways run across the bridge to all parts of South London. The detached buildings on the opposite bank are St. Thomas's Hospital. In the background is Lambeth Bridge, with Lambeth Palace (p. 298) close at hand. The Albert Embankment, bordering the southern bank of the river from Westminster Bridge to Vauxhall Bridge, was constructed about the same time as the Victoria Embankment. A site of 5 acres on the Surrey side of Westminster Bridge, opposite St. Thomas's Hospital, has been decided upon for the New County Hall, to replace the present inconvenient and insufficient headquarters of the County Council at Spring Gardens. The scheme will involve an expenditure of over £1,700,000, the estimated cost of the site being £600,000. Along the front of the block an embankment in continuation of that below St. Thomas's Hospital will be constructed. The Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and other buildings hereabouts will require at least a-morning to themselves, so we will turn along Bridge Street, past the Westminster Bridge Station of the District Railway, to the corner of Parliament Street. The new Government Offices at the western corner will eventually extend right back to St. James's

Park. They will be used by the Education Department, the Local Government Board and the Board of Trade. Practically the whole of the western side of Whitehall is now occupied by Governinent Offices, with a considerable overflow on the eastern side.

Proceeding from the south we first reach a fine quadrangle, erected 1868-73 from the designs of Sir Gilbert Scott, the sides of which face Whitehall, Charles Street,. Downing Street and St. James's Park respectively. The inner courts, like the outer façades, are adorned with statues. Here are housed the Home Office, the Colonial Office, the India Office and the Foreign Office. Only persons having business are, as a rule, admitted. The meetings of the Cabinet are usually held in the Foreign Office.

Next comes historic Downing Street, (Plan II. E. 9). No. 10, the official residence of the Prime Minister, is a simple mansion of dull brown brick, bearing little outward indication of its importance. So long ago as 1815 Nightingale, in his London and Middlesex, wrote :

"Downing Street is a narrow, mean-looking street, opening at the top into a handsome though small square, in which is the residence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister. This house has nothing in its exterior or interior of peculiar merit, except it be the excellent taste and beauty manifested in the furniture, paintings, library, etc. Nothing, however, appears to be superfluous or unneces sarily expensive; a stranger who visits the houses of some of our very first public officers and political characters would not suppose that the resources of the country are at any time in a very flattering state, or he would conclude that a spirit of parsimony had seized the whole nation. One would have thought that the official residence of such a person as the first Minister and chief director in the affairs of the revenue would have had a commanding and conspicuous situation, and have been adorned with some emblems of our national greatness, or some intimations of our rank among the nations of Europe. Instead of this, it is hidden in a corner.'

In a recent magazine article, Sir Algernon West, who was so intimately associated with Mr. Gladstone, wrote:-

I can conceive no angle of the earth more full of historical recol. lections than 10, Downing Street. All the great men of the days of the Georges must in their time have passed before the door. There must have stood Sir Robert Walpole's chariot and Chatham's sedan chair; while Horace Walpole himself saw those men who, as Macaulay says, were Whigs when it must have been as dangerous to be a Whig as a highwayman; men who had been concealed in garrets and cellars after the battle of Sedgemoor, and who had put their name to the declaration that they would live and die with the Prince and Princess of Orange."

Steps lead down to St. James's Park, and a gateway and subway

adjoining No. 10 bring one out on the Parade Ground behind
the Horse Guards. Between Downing Street and the Horse
Guards is the long range of buildings housing the Board of
Education, the Treasury, the Privy Council, and other important
bodies and functionaries. Dover House is the Scottish Office.
By a paradox typically British, these buildings, from which a
mighty Empire is actually governed, display none of the pomp
of power, while the Horse Guards, now little more than a cavalry
guard-house, is always in daytime sentinelled by gigantic guards-
men, whose appearance is calculated to excite awe and admir-
ation in all beholders. The two mounted sentries at the gate are
relieved every hour. The ceremony is not uninteresting, but a far
more important spectacle is provided about 10.30 every morning,
when the operation of Changing the Guard takes place. Readers
of W. E. Henley will recall the lines on The Lifeguardsman :—
"He wears his inches weightily, as he wears

His old-world armour; and with his port and pride,
His sturdy graces and enormous airs,

He towers, in speech his Colonel countrified,

A triumph, waxing statelier year by year,

Of British blood and bone and beef and beer."

The old stone building, dating from 1758, stands on the site of the tiltyard of Westminster, so renowned in the courtly annals of Tudor times. A passage under the picturesque clock tower gives access to St. James's Park, and is much frequented by foot-passengers, but only royalty and a few other privileged persons are allowed to drive through. On the Parade Ground behind the picturesque ceremony of Trooping the Colour" is annually performed on the official" birthday of the King in June. Here stand several historic old cannon from Egypt, Salamanca, etc. The imposing quadrangular pile, with cupola, to the north of the Parade Ground, is the New Admiralty. The Old Admiralty faces Whitehall, next to the Horse Guards.

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So much for the western side of this famous thoroughfare. Let us now take the other, again supposing ourselves at the foot of Parliament Street. Derby Street would take us to New Scotland Yard, the river front of which we have already seen (p. 87), a remark which applies also to Montague House. Whitehall Gardens, lying back from the road, occupy the site of the old Privy Garden attached to the Palace of Whitehall. No. 2 was, from 1873-5, the residence of Benjamin Disraeli. No. 4, marked by a tablet, was the town house of Sir Robert Peel, to which he was brought home to die after falling from his