In 1731,
John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu, abandoned the existing grand
Montagu House in the socially declining district of
Bloomsbury, which was later to become the premises of the
British Museum, and purchased a site that had once been occupied by the
Archbishops of York's London residence and had later been part of the site of
Whitehall Palace. He built himself a relatively modest mansion in the conventional style of the day, which can be seen in
Canaletto's painting of Whitehall. In the late 1850s, the 2nd Duke of Montagu's descendant,
Walter Montagu Douglas Scott, 5th Duke of Buccleuch, one of the United Kingdom's three or four richest landowners, replaced the Georgian house with one of the grandest private mansions in London. It was designed by the versatile Scottish architect
William Burn in the style of a
French Renaissance chateau. The building was admired in its day. It was built of
Portland stone, with a steep
mansard roof, corner towers and a skyline peppered with stone chimneys. The interior featured a top-lit central saloon and a grand staircase, heavily coffered ceilings and elaborately carved furnishings. It housed part of the exceptional Buccleuch art collection, including works by
Rubens and
Rembrandt and the finest British collection of miniatures apart from the
Royal Collection.
Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, was born there in 1901. In 1917 the house was taken over for use as government offices, and its owner
John Montagu Douglas Scott, 7th Duke of Buccleuch took a new London townhouse at No. 2
Grosvenor Place. In 1949–50 Montagu House was demolished. The site forms roughly the southern half of that of the current main
Ministry of Defence building in Whitehall. ==See also==