Montagu House (Whitehall)
Montagu House was a mansion in Whitehall in the Westminster borough of the British capital, London .
In 1731, John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu , gave up his existing Montagu House in the socially declining district of Bloomsbury , which later became the British Museum . He bought land that used to be the residence of the Archbishop of York in London and which was then part of the Palace of Whitehall estate . He himself had a rather modest mansion built in the style customary at the time, which can be seen in Canaletto's painting of Whitehall.
In the late 1850s, the descendant of the 2nd Duke of Montagu, Walter Montagu Douglas Scott, 5th Duke of Buccleuch , one of the three or four richest landowners in Great Britain, had the house built in the Georgian style . It was 'the versatile Scottish architect' 'William Burn' in the style of a French Renaissance castle designed. At the time, the building was widely admired. It was built of Portland stone with a mansard roof , corner towers, and a skyline of stone chimneys. In the middle inside was a salon with a skylight and a large staircase. There were also coffered ceilings and finely carved furnishings. It housed part of the Buccleuchs' exceptional art collection with works by Rubens and Rembrandt, as well as Britain's finest collection of miniatures, with the exception of the Royal Collection .
In 1917 the house was taken over by the government as an office building and in 1949–1950 it was demolished. The former site now forms approximately the southern half of what is now the UK Department of Defense's property in Whitehall.
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- David Pearce: London Mansions: The Palatial Houses of the Nobility BT Batsford, London 1986.
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Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 23 " N , 0 ° 7 ′ 35" W.