Dover House Scottish Office

Dover House, now the Scottish Office, is a former mansion dating from 1755 to 1758, originally designed by James Paine for Sir Matthew Featherstonhaugh. Later, in 1787, it was enlarged for the Duke of York with significant alterations by Henry Holland, who added a new porticoed forebuilding with an entrance hall, rebuilt the west front, and redecorated some of the interiors. The building is constructed of Portland stone with a slate roof.

Architecturally, it presents a restrained and elegant Palladian design by Paine, with a sophisticated Parisian neo-Classical facade added by Holland. The building is three storeys high with a dormered hipped roof, and five windows wide. The Whitehall front features low, single-storey wings with pediments facing north and south, partially concealed by Holland’s screen. This screen is a tetrastyle Greek Ionic portico, projecting over the pavement, with recessed sections of fine ashlar rustication, an entablature, and a balustraded parapet. The entablature and parapet extend over the blind end walls of the wings, which are also rusticated. The front facing Horse Guards Parade has a three-storey, single-window south extension to its five-bay front. The windows are glazing bar sashes, with those on the first floor pedimented, and the central first-floor window of Venetian pattern within a semi-circular arched recess. A continuous iron balcony runs along the first floor. The exterior is finished with a modillion cornice and a balustraded parapet.

Holland's Whitehall portico leads to a circular, saucer-domed hall encircled by Tuscan pink marble columns on drum pedestals, lit by a lantern, and from which a staircase with bowed and segmental steps rises into Paine’s original house. On the first floor, the north room retains a compartmented ceiling by Paine, while the south room has a ceiling dating from approximately 1840 in an Italianate style. On the ground floor, the central room features delicate painted decoration in the Etruscan-Raphaelesque style, influenced by Bélanger, with flanking rooms incorporating screens, all as part of Holland’s refurbishment. The building also contains good quality fireplaces and other decorative features.