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A political history of Britain in the places where it happened: parliament and palace, courts and counting houses, and the streets where people pushed back.
One government building held British diplomacy and the administration of India, side by side.
Empire
George Gilbert Scott's block on King Charles Street was built in the 1860s to hold four departments at once, two of them the Foreign Office and the India Office. The India Office inherited the East India Company's enormous apparatus when the Crown took over direct rule in 1858, and from these rooms a few hundred officials coordinated the government of hundreds of millions of people. The decoration was the argument: the Durbar Court, the grand staircase and the council chamber made overseas rule look ceremonial and permanent in the middle of Whitehall. Independence in 1947 ended the office, and its rooms were absorbed into what is now the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. The inside opens rarely, usually for Open House weekend in September.
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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.