Since the middle of the 18th century there had been growing criticism that London had no great public buildings. Government departments and the learned societies were huddled away in small old buildings all over the city. Developing national pride found comparison with the capitals of continental Europe disquieting.
Edmund Burke was the top proponent of the scheme for a "national building", and in 1775 Parliament passed an act, the ''''
(15 Geo. 3. c. 33), for the purpose of, inter alia'', "erecting and establishing Offices in Somerset House, and for embanking Parts of the River Thames lying within the bounds of the
Manor of Savoy". The list of public offices mentioned in the act comprised "The Salt Office, The Stamp Office, The Tax Office, The Navy Office, The Navy Victualling Office, The Publick Lottery Office, The Hawkers and Pedlar Office, The Hackney Coach Office, The Surveyor General of the Crown Lands Office, The
Auditors of the Imprest Office, The Pipe Office, The Office of the
Duchy of Lancaster, The Office of the
Duchy of Cornwall, The
Office of Ordnance, The King's Bargemaster's House, The King's Bargehouses". Somerset House was still technically a royal palace and therefore
Crown property, with most work being done by the King's Master Mason,
John Deval. The building had been placed in trust for the use of
Queen Charlotte in the event that her husband
King George III predeceased her. Therefore, the 1775 act annulled this arrangement and instead provided for another property, Buckingham House, to be vested in trust for the Queen on the same terms. (Provision was made for the King, who had privately purchased Buckingham House some years earlier, to be duly compensated). In due course, the King outlived the Queen and the property (later known as
Buckingham Palace) reverted "to the use of His Majesty, his heirs and successors". By virtue of the same act,
Ely House in
Holborn (which had itself been purchased just a few years earlier as a potential site for new public offices) was sold and the proceeds applied to the Somerset House project. Initially a certain William Robinson, Secretary to the
Board of Works, was commissioned to design and build the new Somerset House, but he died in 1775 shortly after being appointed.
Design Chambers' own influences stemmed from
Palladianism, the principles of which were applied throughout Somerset House, inside and outside, both in its large-scale conception and in its small-scale details. It is not certain at what pace the rest of the construction progressed, but it is clear that the outbreak of
war with France in 1793 caused delays through lack of money. Chambers died in 1796, whereupon
James Wyatt took over as architect. In the end, only the western terrace was built and by 1801 the building was deemed to be complete, at a cost of £462,323.
Ornamentation In addition to applying a rich scheme of architectural decoration, Chambers enhanced the exterior of Somerset House with a multiplicity of sculptures and other visual embellishments.
Giovanni Cipriani produced designs and the sculptors executing them included
Joseph Wilton,
Agostino Carlini,
John Bacon,
Joseph Nollekens,
John Cheere and
Giuseppe Ceracchi. many of the ceiling paintings were removed by the Royal Academy when they vacated their premises.
Accommodation A key reason for rebuilding Somerset House was to provide accommodation for a diverse variety of
learned societies,
public offices and
naval administrators. The
Geological Society was also accommodated in the Somerset House from 1828, as was the
Royal Astronomical Society from 1834. The annual
Royal Academy Exhibition was held in Somerset House from 1780 onwards, In 1857, the Royal Society moved out of Somerset House, followed in 1874 by the Society of Antiquaries, the
Geological Society and the
Royal Astronomical Society; they were all provided with new purpose-built accommodation in Burlington House. In addition, the terrace to the west of the quadrangle provided dwelling-houses for the
Comptroller of the Navy, the Secretary to the Board and three
Commissioners of the Navy, along with the chairman, Secretary and two
Commissioners of Victualling, As well as providing office space and accommodation, Somerset House was the place where examinations for promotion to the rank of
lieutenant took place, sat by several hundred
midshipmen each year. Nevertheless, the move was completed by 1873, and the expanding Inland Revenue immediately took over the vacated space in Somerset House.
Taxes, stamps and the Inland Revenue From the beginning of the new Somerset House there was a fiscal presence in the shape of the
Stamp Office and the
Tax Office, the former occupying the eastern part of the South Wing from 1789 and the latter occupying part of the East Wing. The Stamp Office had the task of applying an
impressed duty stamp to various specific items to show that the
required duty had been paid. For example, up until 1855 (when the relevant duty was abolished) every newspaper produced in the country had to be brought to Somerset House to be stamped. The Tax Office administered and collected various taxes, including
income tax (first levied in 1799). Introduced as a means of raising revenue in wartime, it was collected during the
French Revolutionary Wars and the
Napoleonic Wars; though repealed in 1816, it was reintroduced in peacetime (in 1842) and has been collected ever since. The
Inland Revenue was created by a merger of the Stamp and Taxes Office and the
Excise Office in 1849; in 1854 the Excise Office staff were moved from their old headquarters in the City of London into the newly built New Wing. Somerset House continued in use by the Inland Revenue throughout the 20th century. In 2005, the
Inland Revenue was merged with
HM Customs and Excise; its successor
HM Revenue & Customs continued to occupy much of the building, although its executive and senior management moved to
100 Parliament Street shortly after the merger. Various divisions and directorates of HMRC continued to occupy the East Wing until 2009, the West Wing until 2011 and the New Wing until March 2013, by which time all staff had been relocated (with most moving across the street to the southwest wing of
Bush House). This brought to an end a 224-year association of the revenue services with Somerset House. Phillips retired as principal chemist in 1874. James Bell was then the principal chemist of Somerset House Laboratory until his retirement in 1894. He was replaced as principal chemist by Sir
Thomas Edward Thorpe. At the same time, the laboratory was amalgamated with a similar facility that had been established within HM Customs and it was renamed the
Government Laboratory. In 1897, Thorpe moved the Government Laboratory from Somerset House to a new building of his own design.
Registry of Births, Marriages and Deaths In 1837, following the establishment of
civil registration in the United Kingdom, the
Registrar General of Births, Marriages and Deaths set up his office in the North Wing of Somerset House, establishing a connection that lasted for over 130 years. This office held all
birth,
marriage and
death certificates in
England and Wales until 1970, when the Registry and its associated archives were moved to nearby
St Catherine's House at
Aldwych. From 1859 until 1998, the Principal Registry of the
Court of Probate (latterly the Principal Probate Registry of the
Family Division) was based in Somerset House, prior to its move to First Avenue House,
High Holborn.
Other public offices In addition to the learned societies, the ground floor rooms of the North Wing housed the Hawkers and Pedlars Office (on the west side) and the
Hackney Coach Office, the
Lottery Office, the
Privy Seal and Signet Offices (on the east side). The Hackney Coach commissioners had been established on a permanent footing in 1694, while the Board of Commissioners of
Hawkers,
Pedlars and Petty
Chapmen dated from 1698; the latter was abolished in 1810 and its work taken over by the Hackney Coach Office until its abolition in 1831, whereupon responsibility for licensing both of hackney carriages and of travelling traders passed to the Stamp Office. The Lottery Office, established in 1779, was also abolished in 1831 and its residual business likewise passed to the Stamp Office. The Signet Office was abolished in 1851 and the Privy Seal Office in 1884. One of the first occupants of the building had been the
Duchy of Cornwall Office. It was accommodated in the East Wing along with the Tax Office and various
Exchequer offices (including the
Pipe Office, the
Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer's Office and the Office of the Clerk of the
Estreats). As early as 1795 the Exchequer was requesting that more space be made available;
Sir John Soane was engaged to redesign their offices, and as part of the scheme the Duchy was relocated to another part of the East Wing, prompting complaints from its officers.
Pipe rolls and other ancient records of the Treasury and Exchequer (which had been moved to Somerset House from the
Palace of Westminster in 1793) remained stored in the basements until the establishment of the
Public Record Office in 1838. The office of Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer ceased to exist in 1833 and the Pipe Office was abolished in 1834; however space in Somerset House continued to be at a premium: in 1854 an act of Parliament, the
Duchy of Cornwall Office Act 1854 (17 & 18 Vict. c. 93), was passed, noting that the Duchy's rooms in Somerset House were now needed "for the use of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, whose present office is insufficient for the Business thereof, and adjoins the said Office of the Duchy of Cornwall". The act provided for the Duchy Office to move to new, purpose-built premises in
Pimlico: now known as 10
Buckingham Gate, the building still serves as head office for the Duchy. From 1785 the
Commissioners for Auditing Public Accounts were also housed in the East Wing, The
Surveyor of Crown Lands also had his office here until the early 19th century. The Salt Office initially occupied rooms in the West Wing, alongside the naval offices, but it was abolished in 1798 (administration of the
salt tax having been transferred to the Board of Excise). and the
Tithe Commissioners (1836–51), who also acted as the
Copyhold Commissioners. the architect was Sir
Robert Smirke. 150 years later this part of the building is still known as the "
New Wing". In 1891 a headquarters building was constructed in the West Court (between the West Wing and the New Wing) for the
Civil Service Rifles, a
Rifle Volunteer Corps.
20th-century modifications : installed in the main courtyard in 1919, relocated to the Terrace in 2002 By the start of the
First World War the Civil Service Rifles, by then renamed the 15th (Prince of Wales' Own Civil Service Rifles) Battalion, The
London Regiment, had its own Morris tube firing range (where the calibre of the rifle is reduced for indoor operation by a use of a tube) fitted with vanishing and running targets at Somerset House. Somerset House had its share of trials and tribulations during the
London blitz in the
Second World War. Apart from comparatively minor blast effects at various times, sixteen rooms and the handsome rotunda staircase (the Nelson Stair) were completely destroyed in the South Wing, and a further 27 damaged in the West Wing by a direct hit in October 1940. Still more windows were shattered and balustrades toppled, but the worst was over by the end of May 1941. It was not until the 1950s that this damage to the South Wing was repaired. The work required skilled masons, whose services were hard to come by in the early post-war years. Sir
Albert Richardson was appointed architect for the reconstruction. He skillfully recreated the Nelson Room and rebuilt the Nelson Stair. The work was completed in 1952 at a cost of (then) £84,000. to maintain the building and develop it as a centre for arts and culture. In the late 20th century the building began to be reinvigorated as a centre for the visual arts. The first institution to move in (in 1989) was the
Courtauld Institute of Art, including the
Courtauld Gallery, which has an important collection of
old master and
impressionist paintings. The Courtauld occupies the North Wing. The last Hermitage exhibition took place in 2007 and the Gilbert Collection galleries closed in 2008; the collection moved into new galleries at the
Victoria and Albert Museum in June 2009. Somerset House now puts on a programme of art exhibitions, drawing on various sources. In stages from 2009 to 2013, HM Revenue and Customs withdrew from the other parts of the building; since March 2013 the Somerset House Trust has had oversight of the entire complex. Its management policy has been to rent out the upper floors at a commercial rate to "creative businesses", while devoting the ground floor to "public realm" activities. The trust receives no public subsidy and relies on income from rent and private hire to fund the upkeep of the estate and relies on ticket sales, merchandising and sponsorship to fund its artistic and cultural programme. In 2016, Somerset House Studios was launched in the New Wing as a scheme of affordable studios, residencies and commissions for artists, designers, musicians and filmmakers working across disciplines. In the winter the central courtyard is home to a popular open-air
ice rink, as seen during the opening credits of the 2003 Christmas-themed film
Love Actually. At other times, 55 vertical jets of water rise to random heights from an array of fountains. band
Mogwai playing live at Somerset House. The courtyard is also used as a concert venue. In July each year the "Summer series" of music events takes place, which has included performances from artists such as
Lily Allen. The largest tenant is
King's College London, whose Cultural Institute, Executive Centre and
Dickson Poon School of Law occupy the East Wing, which is adjacent to its historic
College Building of 1831.
Filming location Somerset House is a popular filming location, with its exterior featuring in several big-budget
Hollywood films. These include two
James Bond films,
GoldenEye (1995) and
Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). Several scenes of the 2003 film
Shanghai Knights, starring
Jackie Chan and
Owen Wilson, were filmed in the courtyard of Somerset House. The courtyard was also used in the 1991 comedy
King Ralph. Elements of the 2008 film
The Duchess, starring
Keira Knightley and
Ralph Fiennes, were filmed in October 2007. Somerset House was also used as a filming location in several
Sherlock Holmes films, including
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), directed by
Billy Wilder, and
Sherlock Holmes (2009), starring
Jude Law and
Robert Downey Jr., directed by
Guy Ritchie. Somerset House was used as the external filming location for
Olivia Newton-John's ''Stranger's Touch
video, which featured as part of her Olivia Physical'' video album in 1981. Exterior shots of Somerset House were used in the 1999
Tim Burton horror film
Sleepy Hollow, starring
Johnny Depp, and the 2006 film
Flyboys. Somerset House was a filming location in the 2012
Bollywood film
Jab Tak Hai Jaan, which starred
Shah Rukh Khan,
Katrina Kaif and
Anushka Sharma, directed by
Yash Chopra. Somerset House Courtyard was also used in the 2008 movie
Last Chance Harvey, with
Dustin Hoffman and
Emma Thompson. Scenes were filmed in Somerset House for the
Olympus Has Fallen sequel,
London Has Fallen (2016). Exterior shots of Somerset House stood in for Himmler's HQ in Berlin in the 1976 film
The Eagle Has Landed. The tunnels under Somerset House have also been used in the
Harry Potter films, specifically some of scenes depicting 'Diagon Alley'. Somerset House was also the main location for the
BBC's
New Year Live television show, presented by
Natasha Kaplinsky, which celebrated the arrival of the year 2006.
Fire On 17 August 2024, the
London Fire Brigade responded to a large fire at the location which originated at the building's roof. The building's management said that the fire occurred in the structure's west wing, which did not contain artworks and was instead home to offices and related facilities. ==Gallery==