The
Metropolitan Police Service is responsible for law enforcement within
Greater London, excluding the square mile of the
City of London, which is covered by the
City of London Police, and also excluding the
London Underground and
National Rail networks, which are the responsibility of the
British Transport Police.
4 Whitehall Place The Metropolitan Police was formed by
Robert Peel with the implementation of the
Metropolitan Police Act, passed by Parliament in 1829.) still has a rear entrance on Great Scotland Yard. By 1887, the Metropolitan Police headquarters had expanded from 4 Whitehall Place into several neighbouring addresses, including 3, 5, 21 and 22 Whitehall Place and several stables, including one at 7 Great Scotland Yard still in use by the
mounted branch. Those buildings were damaged in
an 1884 Fenian bomb attack and are now lost under the former Central London Recruiting Office, which was acquired by
hypermarkets operator
Lulu Group International in 2015 and reopened as a
Hyatt luxury hotel four years later.
Victoria Embankment ; at the far right is the Curtis Green Building (white), which became New Scotland Yard in November 2016 In the 1880s the force decided that it had outgrown its original site, and moved to a new headquarters designed by architect
Richard Norman Shaw () on the Victoria Embankment, overlooking the
River Thames, south of what is now the
Ministry of Defence's headquarters. In 1888, during the construction of the new building, workers discovered the dismembered torso of a female; the case, known as the '
Whitehall Mystery', was never solved. In 1890, police headquarters moved to the new location, which was named New Scotland Yard. By this time, the Metropolitan Police had grown from its initial 1,000 officers to about 13,000 and needed more administrative staff and a bigger headquarters. Further increases in the size and responsibilities of the force required even more administrators and space. Therefore, new buildings were constructed and completed in 1906 and 1940, so that New Scotland Yard became a three-building complex. (). The first two buildings are now a Grade I
listed structure known as the
Norman Shaw Buildings.
10 Broadway The headquarters of the Metropolitan Police were moved to 8–10 Broadway in 1967, in a new building constructed on a site that also bordered onto Victoria Street. In 2008, the
Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) bought the
freehold of 10 Broadway for around £120 million. 10 Broadway was sold to the
Abu Dhabi Financial Group in December 2014 for £370 million, and redevelopment plans for a six-building, mixed-use development were approved in February 2016. Ownership was officially passed from the MPA to the Abu Dhabi Financial Group when the relocation was completed on 31 October 2016;
Current location In May 2013, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that the
New Scotland Yard building on Broadway would be sold and the force's headquarters would be moved back to the
Curtis Green Building on the
Victoria Embankment. A competition was announced for architects to redesign the building prior to the Metropolitan Police moving to it in 2015. This building previously housed the Territorial Policing headquarters and is adjacent to the original New Scotland Yard (Norman Shaw North Building). In December 2015, construction work on the exterior of the Curtis Green building was completed. On 31 October 2016, the Metropolitan Police staff left the building at 10 Broadway and moved to their new headquarters. The new New Scotland Yard building was to have been opened by Queen
Elizabeth II on 23 March 2017, but that same day it was announced that the Royal opening would be postponed, due to the preceding day's
terrorist attack at Westminster. The opening was re-arranged for 13 July 2017. Like all three of its predecessors it houses the Met's
Crime Museum (formerly known as the Black Museum), founded in 1874, a collection of criminal memorabilia not open to the public. ==In popular culture==