Foreign And Commonwealth Office With Home Office The Foreign Office The Foreign Office (Foreign And Commonwealth Office With Home Office)

The Foreign Office, completed in 1873, is a government building designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott with Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt, who was responsible for the St. James's Park front composition and the design of the former India Office courtyard. The building occupies a prominent position on Whitehall and King Charles Street in Westminster.

The structure is constructed of Portland stone with polychrome enrichment created through polished granite columns and insets as well as other coloured stones, with slate roofs. The architectural style is Italianate in character, executed in the Venetian-Genoese manner at the insistence of Lord Palmerston. The bold relief ornament is evenly distributed across the symmetrical Whitehall and King Charles Street elevations, though the Downing Street and St. James's Park fronts are asymmetrically and picturesquely composed, featuring a distinctive tower.

The building is planned around courtyards. The main courtyard is entered by triple archways from side streets, with two smaller courtyards behind the Whitehall front and the India Office court, now glazed over, occupying the south west corner.

The Whitehall front is generally of three stages, with the upper and lower containing two storeys. It features a broad centrepiece and end pavilions. A large semicircular arched portal forms the principal entrance, with arcaded ground floor windows containing carved figures in the spandrels. The upper floors display two orders of coupled columns, replaced by pilasters at the end pavilions. The upper windows are tripartite with granite colonettes. Portrait medallions appear above the first floor windows, while the spandrels of the first and second floor centrepiece windows are enriched with carved figures. Enriched entablatures separate the storeys, and a deep crowning entablature with balustraded parapet surmounted by figure sculpture crowns the composition.

Pavilions punctuate the King Charles Street façade. The central pavilion features a triple arched gateway with rusticated quoins and pediment. The rest of this elevation displays more restrained Italianate detailing with archivolt arched windows beneath cornices or pediments.

The St. James's Park front is distinguished by a square tower finished with a belvedere storey and balustraded parapet. A quadrant return to the projecting south west portion displays two tiers of orders and tall arcading at its centrepiece. A corner pavilion marks the junction with Downing Street.

The Downing Street elevation is similar in character to King Charles Street but asymmetrically composed, with an elaborated polygonal bay window above steps down to the park located at the west end.

The main courtyard elevations display two main storeys and an attic storey, with three storey pavilions, all but one pedimented. Four two-storey porches provide entry, and figure sculpture enriches the composition.

The formerly open India Office court, designed in 1867 by Matthew Digby Wyatt, features rich polychrome decoration including majolica friezes made by Minton, Hollins & Co. Polished granite columns with superimposed orders support the space. Four corner statues were created by H. Protat, first floor statues by W. Nicholls, and second floor statues by T. Phyffers. Busts placed above the second floor windows were also created by Protat.

The interior contains rich Italianate decoration. A very grand staircase in the Foreign Office features an imperial marble flight arranged in a tripartite thermal configuration ascending to a gallery with coffered barrel vaults flanking a dome on pendentives positioned over the centre of the compartment. An important collection of 18th and 19th century statues associated with the former India Office is housed within the building.