The Old Admiralty Building: back in Her Majesty’s service

By Elizabeth Hopkirk2020-12-14T05:00:00

Source: Nick Caville

Elizabeth Hopkirk tells the story behind the £60m refurbishment of Whitehall’s Old Admiralty Building

Westminster’s grand Old Admiralty Building is the backdrop to many of the nation’s most important ceremonial events. Its turrets and handsome red brick and Portland stone facades face both The Mall and Horse Guards Parade, scene of Trooping the Colour and the Olympic beach volleyball in 2012. This summer, on the 75th anniversary of VJ Day, the actor Hugh Bonneville clambered through a window while vintage newsreel was beamed across the facade.

These 130-year-old walls, enclosing almost a hectare of prime land in a highly secure area of Whitehall, are all that most people will ever see. But it is within them that some of the most significant – and classified – events in the 20th-century history of the UK have taken place.

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