War Office

The War Office was a former department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1963, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence. The name "War Office" is also often given to the former home of the department, the Old War Office Building on Whitehall, London.

Old War Office Building

Between 1906 and its abolition in 1964, the War Office was based in a massive neo-Baroque building, completed in 1906, located on Whitehall, London. It contains about a thousand rooms across seven floors, linked by 2½ miles of corridors. The construction of the War Office building took five years to complete at what was then a huge cost of over £1.2 million. The building is somewhat oddly shaped, forming a trapezium shape in order to maximise the usage of the irregularly shaped plot of land on which it was built. Its four distinctive domes were designed as a decorative means of disguising the building's shape.

Related Topics:
1906 - Neo-Baroque - Whitehall - London - Trapezium

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The building is still used by the Ministry of Defence and is not currently open to the public.

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