Downing Street
— — the black door at the end of a short street.
Not only on a wall.
“A short cul-de-sac off Whitehall, walked by every British prime minister since Robert Walpole moved into Number 10 in 1735. The terrace was thrown up in the 1680s by Sir George Downing, a diplomat with a famously thin reputation; the houses behind the famous façade are larger than they look, knitted into the Treasury behind. The black door has no keyhole from the outside. Iron gates closed the entrance from Whitehall in 1989. From the studio, this tile is for the street as Londoners see it from the gate, on a quiet grey morning before the photographers arrive.
Downing Street, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Downing Street is a short cul-de-sac in the City of Westminster, running west off Whitehall and ending at the back of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. The terrace was built in the 1680s by Sir George Downing, an English diplomat and former Cromwellian, on the site of an older mansion called Hampden House. The street has been the official base of British government for nearly three centuries: Number 10 has housed the prime minister since Robert Walpole accepted the property as a personal gift from George II in 1735, and Number 11 has housed the Chancellor of the Exchequer since 1828.
The famous façade of Number 10 is a Georgian black face, but the house behind it is older, larger, and stranger. Architect William Kent joined Number 10 to a much larger house behind it in the 1730s, producing a single residence with about 100 rooms across five floors. The black door is steel — the wooden original was retired after the 1991 IRA mortar attack on the Cabinet Room — and has no keyhole on the outside. The iron gates at the Whitehall end of the street were installed in 1989 on the advice of the Metropolitan Police.
The street itself has been closed to the public since the 1989 gates went up, and the entrance from Whitehall is now a controlled checkpoint. The classic photograph of the black door is taken through the railings or, on press-pool days, from the pavement inside. Whitehall itself is fully walkable: the Cenotaph, the Foreign Office, Horse Guards, and Banqueting House all stand within 200 metres of the gates. Westminster Underground is a five-minute walk south; St James's Park station is four minutes the other way. The closest gallery is the National at Trafalgar Square.