Somerset House

Somerset House, Georgian building situated on the Strand, London, on the site of the original 16th-century Somerset House.

The original Somerset House was built in 1547 by the 1st Duke of Somerset, and was the first Renaissance palace in England. Somerset had that year been named Lord Protector for the recently crowned nine-year-old Edward VI, and thus set about building a home to match his ambitions. He knocked down two bishops’ palaces, an inn of chancery, and a church to make room for the palace. After his execution in 1552, Somerset House became a royal residence and a venue for peace conferences. It was eventually demolished in the 1770s, despite boasting a chapel designed by Inigo Jones and the first example of parquet flooring in Europe.

Today’s Somerset House was built between 1776 and 1809 and was one of the first buildings in Britain designed specifically to house public offices. It was designed by the architect Sir William Chambers in a Neo-Classical Style, and is his most famous building. Aside from government offices, the building has also housed the Admiralty, the Royal Society, the Royal Academy of Arts (between 1780 and 1837), the Royal College of Art (until the 19th century), and the Poor Law Commission (1834).

For much of the 20th century, Somerset House was closed to the public, apart from being home to the General Register for Births, Marriages, and Deaths. However, in 1989, the Courtauld Institute Galleries moved into the north block and, in 1997, the Somerset House Trust was established to conserve and restore the rest of the building for public use. A £48 million restoration programme was completed in May 2000. The courtyard, previously used as a car park, now boasts the first major new public fountains in London for 150 years. The innovative design sets 55 jets of water, which disappear from view when not in use, within the newly laid granite paving. The Great Arch, which in Chambers’ time provided direct access to the building from the river, but was filled in during the creation of the Victoria Embankment in the 1870s, has been excavated to provide access to a new gallery of decorative arts housed in the vaulted halls along the riverside, the Gilbert Collection. The elevated river terrace has also been opened, linked by a new walkway to Waterloo Bridge, and in a unique collaboration with Russia’s state gallery, a new exhibition space in the south range was created to display collections from the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.