Horse Guards: horses, guards, spectacle - and military history - since 1663
- London On The Ground
- Aug 29
- 9 min read
The barracks and stable that’s also a Royal gateway, Household Cavalry HQ, the British Army’s London District HQ and a museum.
If you walk down Whitehall, you will often encounter crowds of tourists gaping at mounted guards with shiny helmets, swords and breast plates, providing the type of timeless day-to-day spectacle at which London excels. Although they are a 20 minute walk from Buckingham Palace, these fairy-tale soldiers are guarding the royal residence from an officially designated entrance to the palace, Horse Guards. What’s more, the building has played a highly significant role in the history of the British Army.
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Gateway
The current Horse Guards was built for George II in 1755 to replace an earlier building of 1663 commissioned by Charles II.
The first Horse Guards acted as a gateway from St James' Park to Whitehall Palace, which was then the main royal residence.
After Whitehall Palace burned down in 1698, the royal household and court moved to St James' Palace across the other side of St James' Park. Horse Guards then served as the entrance from Whitehall to that palace.
The first Horse Guards
The original building of 1663 was built in red brick on a site between St James’ Park and Whitehall Palace. The Palace was a sprawling collection of buildings between the Thames and St James’ Park, which was the Royal Family’s private garden. The arch of Horse Guards was the only entrance to the park and access was strictly controlled by a password (replaced after 1775 by special ivory passes).
As well as a gateway, Charles II needed a barracks and stables for his new mounted bodyguard, formed of Royalist men who had joined him in exile in Holland and France during the Commonwealth (the period when England was a republic). This bodyguard became The Life Guards, one of the two regiments of today’s Household Cavalry. As the Life Guards was the first regiment of the regular British Army, there had previously been no need for a permanent barracks.
The first Horse Guards, built where Oliver Cromwell had stabled his guard on the historic Tiltyard, had stables for more than 100 horses. It also housed duty troops of the Household Cavalry and soldiers of the Foot Guard, which then comprised the Grenadier and Coldstream Guards, also established by Charles II.
After the fire of 1698 that destroyed Whitehall Palace (apart from Banqueting House, the only significant survivor of the palace) and even though the Court and Royal Family had moved to St James' Palace, Horse Guards remained an official entrance to the royal residence.
It also found growing use as offices for the expanding regular army and soon became overcrowded. The degraded structure was in need of replacement by the mid 1700s.
The Italian artist Giovanni Antonio Canal, commonly known as Canaletto, painted the Old Horse Guards shortly before it was taken down in 1749.
The second Horse Guards
The current Horse Guards was constructed on the same location over 10 years in the 1750s to designs by William Kent, who doubled the interior space by extending the wings of the building.
Kent adopted the Palladian style, a classically-inspired form of architecture named after 16th century Italian architect Andrea Palladio. The style was first brought to England in the early 17th century by Inigo Jones, who designed Banqueting House (which is opposite Horse Guards on Whitehall).
Canaletto painted New Horse Guards in c.1753, before it was completed, from the same spot in St James' Park where he had painted Old Horse Guards. In both pictures, houses at the end of Downing Street can be seen on the right hand side.
Downing Street did not open out onto the park, but had houses across the western end of the street. As my photo shows, taken from roughly the same spot where Canaletto was painting, some of these houses are still there (comparison with my photo shows how the artist exaggerated the size of Horse Guards). Also visible, just beyond Horse Guards in the Canaletto paintings and today, is the red brick Old Admiralty Building (under scaffolding in my photo).
The maps below show the area in1746, close to the time of Canaletto's paintings, and today. I have circled Old Horse Guards on the 1746 map (taken from John Rocque's Map of London, Westminster and Southwark) and New Horse Guards on today's map. I have marked the approximated vantage point of Canaletto's paintings and my photo on both maps with an X. Downing Street is towards the bottom of both maps (for a history of Downing Street, please click here).
Click on any image to enlarge
Left: extract from John Rocque's Map of London, Westminster and Southwark, 1746. Right: the same area today. Source: Layers of London.
In 1755 the Household Cavalry moved into the northern wing of the new building, which had offices and stabling for 62 horses, while the Foot Guards took the southern wing.
The army had almost doubled in size by the time it was finished, soon leaving the building with little spare capacity. In 1803-05, a second and a third storey were added to the ranges connecting the north and south wings to the central block.
Horse Guards housed the War Office, the headquarters of the British Army and the office of the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army until 1858. As such it was a hugely significant building for two centuries - from the establishment of the first regular Army regiments under Charles I in the mid 17th century to the defeat of Napoleon in 1815 and the UK becoming a global military power under Queen Victoria.
Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, the second son of George III (said to be the inspiration for the song The Grand Old Duke of York) was a famous incumbent of the Commander-in-Chief's office in 1795-1809.
An even more famous occupant was Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, Commander-in-Chief in 1827-28 and again from 1842 until his death in 1852. His coffin rested in the office the night before his state funeral.
His former office is now used by the Major-General commanding the Household Division (apparently the desk and decor in the room are unchanged from Wellington’s time, which suggests today’s occupant is not quite the very model of a modern major-general).
Although it is no longer the headquarters of the entire British Army, Horse Guards is the headquarters of the Household Cavalry and of the London District of the British Army.
The Clock Tower
The Clock Tower retains the baroque look of its predecessor - more fussy and elaborate - leading one Victorian critic to call the building "the ugliest building in the metropolis".
The clock was completed in 1756 by Thwaites (which claims to be the oldest clock manufacturing company in the world) and refurbished in 1816. It had a reputation for accuracy and was the was main public clock in Westminster until 1859, when the clock tower of today's Houses of Parliament (now called the Elizabeth Tower and popularly known as Big Ben) was completed.
The clock face has a small, but significant, detail.
There is a dark mark at two o'clock to commemorate the hour of the execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649. He was beheaded almost directly opposite where the clock stands today, on a scaffold in front of Banqueting House.
Ironically, he had commissioned “a Court of Guards in the Tiltyard before Whitehall” back in 1641, so could have been the first monarch to have a barracks built at this site, but the Civil War intervened and prevented its construction. On the morning of his execution, he was taken by armed guards from St James’ Palace to Banqueting House via the site that would become Horse Guards.
The King's Life Guard
Mounted soldiers of the Household Cavalry have guarded Horse Guards ever since the first building was constructed in 1633. The corps comprises the British Army’s two most senior regiments: The Life Guards, who wear red tunics and white helmet plumes, and the Blues and Royals (formed in 1969 from the merger of the Royal Dragoons and The Blues), who wear blue tunics and red helmet plumes.
Slightly confusingly, they are also collectively called the King’s Life Guard.
The guards arrive every morning from their Hyde Park Barracks, dressed in ceremonial uniforms - with polished breast plates (known as cuirasses), swords and plumed helmets - which date from the 19th century and have never been worn in battle. They guard here daily from 11am to 4pm, after which two dismounted guards stand sentinel until 8pm. The gates are then locked and a single sentry remains until 7am.
According to a display in the Household Cavalry Museum, a trooper spends at least 10 hours preparing his uniform, equipment and horse for inspection prior to guard duty. Everything must be cleaned and polished and all items - including saddles, collar chains, sword slings, plumes and cuirasses - must be fitted correctly. A loose helmet will tip back, while a tight helmet will cause an unbearable headache.
The troopers that are graded best are awarded guard duty in the sentry boxes, while the worst must do guard duty dismounted.
The Changing of the King's Life Guard takes place at 11am and an inspection takes place at 4pm. The afternoon inspection is a tradition that started in 1894, when Queen Victoria found guards drunk and gambling one afternoon at 4pm. Incensed, she ordered a 4pm daily inspection for the next 100 years. In 1994 Queen Elizabeth II decided to maintain the tradition, known as the ‘Punishment Parade’, which now also continues under Charles III.
In the Household Cavalry Museum, there is a clock, set into a model of the central block of Horse Guards. Its hands have been set to 4pm to commemorate the Punishment Parade. It was presented by a 19th century officer to The Blues (a predecessor regiment of today’s Blues and Royals, one of the two regiments of the Household Cavalry).
Horse Guards Parade
The daily changing of the guard and inspection take place on Horse Guards Parade, which is the large parade ground behind Horse Guards to the west. The space was originally known as the tiltyard after Henry VIII laid it out in the 16th century for jousting tournaments and other large events.
In the 20th century Horse Guards Parade served as a car park for a number of years and in 2012 it was the venue for beach volley ball in the London Olympics, but its main role is in military ceremonies, parades and pageants.
It is the location for the annual Trooping the Colour parade in June, marking the official birthday of the monarch and involving 1,400 soldiers, 200 horses and 400 musicians. I took the photo below at the dress rehearsal for the Trooping the Colour in June 1977.
Horse Guards Parade is also the venue for the annual Beating the Retreat pageant, usually over two or three evenings in July.
Household Cavalry Museum
The Household Cavalry Museum is accessible from Horse Guards Parade, just to the north of the central arch from Whitehall. Just outside the entrance is an equestrian statue of Field Marshal Viscount Garnet Wolseley, Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in 1895-1901 (thought to be the original model of a modern major-general, as he may have been the inspiration for W. S. Gilbert to create the major-general character and his song lyrics in The Pirates of Penzance).
The Museum has artefacts, documents, uniforms, swords, helmets and many other items relating the history of the Household Cavalry. It deals with the corps’ ceremonial traditions and with its active participation in conflicts through to the 21st century.
The museum occupies part of the original stables and retains part of the original stone cobbled floor. The current stables, which have capacity for 17 horses and have been in use since the 18th century, are adjacent to the museum and can be seen through an opaque glass screen entrance (unfortunately the horses were absent during my visit, due to refurbishment).
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Former stable area, now part of the museum (left) and current stable area seen through opaque glass (right).
Guarding the sovereign since 1663
The Royal Residence officially moved to Buckingham Palace under Queen Victoria in 1837, even further across St James’ Park than St James’ Palace is from Horse Guards. Nevertheless, this 18th century building with 17th century origins is still regarded as an official entrance to the royal residence.
The guards and horses outside Horse Guards offer glitter and pageantry to tourists, but they are part of a tradition of guarding the sovereign since 1663.
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Sentry box with trooper and horse (left) and sentry box after trooper and horse (right)
Walks available for booking
For a schedule of forthcoming London On The Ground guided walks and tours, please click here.
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