Clarence House

Lancaster House (originally known as York House and then Stafford House) is a mansion in the St James's district in the West End of London. It is close to St James's Palace, and much of the site was once part of the palace complex. This Grade I listed building is now managed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

The Government Wine Cellar (GWC) is a provider of wine to support the hospitality work of the United Kingdom's government. It was founded in 1908 and since 1922 has been housed in a cellar of Lancaster House in London. The cellar is estimated to contain around 39,000 bottles of wine and spirits estimated at a value of over £2 million. The cellar is managed day-to-day by the Government Butler and is overseen by the head of Government Hospitality coming under the jurisdiction of the Foreign Office. It was originally stocked on the advice of the Government Hospitality Advisory Committee for the Purchase of Wine, a quango that was abolished in 2010. Before its abolition, the committee met two or three times a year in the cellar, around a table carved from an elm tree that blew down in St James's Park in around 1830. The role of the committee was to taste the wines, make recommendations for new purchases to keep the cellar stocked, and to sell a portion on the open market to fund the restocking process. They also graded the wines and offered serving suggestions.Since 2010 cellar has been stocked according to recommendations from a specialist committee of Masters of Wine, chaired by a former diplomat. Aside from the Government Butler, access to the cellar is strictly limited to Permanent Secretaries and Ministers.The wine is served according to a complex system. Ministers are asked to give their preferences when they take office. Food being served at the banquet or function is usually factored in. National sensitivities and customs are also considered – for example when there is a Chinese delegation vintages from 1988 are used, as '8' is considered a lucky number in China.The cellar includes wines from Château Lafite, Cheval Blanc, Cos d’Estournel, Mouton Rothschild and Le Pin. It had previously held over seventeen different types of Champagne including a magnum of Champagne Krug 1964 and still holds such valuable spirits as an 1878 Grand Fins Bois Cognac and 1931 Quinta do Noval Port. English and Welsh wines are estimated to make up 44% of all those served in 2016, including Nyetimber’s demi-sec. The Foreign Office have stated that the most the cellar has ever spent on a single bottle of wine is £100.

York House is a historic wing of St James's Palace, London, built for Frederick, Prince of Wales, on his marriage in 1736. It is in the north-western part of the palace on the site of a former suttling-house (canteen) for the Guards; it overlooks Ambassadors' Court and Cleveland Row to the west of the old Chapel Royal. Prince Frederick occupied it for about a year, until his quarrel with the his father drove him from Court. In 1795, Princess Caroline resided here before her marriage with the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV. Prince Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, subsequently King of Hanover, lived here for a great many years; and the Duchess of Cambridge was identified with it from 1851 until her death in 1889. Later occupants included the future George V, the late Duke and Duchess of Gloucester from 1936 to 1970, and Princes Charles, William and Harry, who used it before moving to Clarence House.As Edward, Prince of Wales, the future Edward VIII lived at York House, before his refurbishment of Fort Belvedere in Windsor Great Park.The building includes a suite of somewhat low-pitched rooms on the ground-floor, several drawing-rooms on the first floor, a corridor in the rear, and the servants' rooms on the top storey; all facing Cleveland Row. The ceilings of the top floor are low, height having been sacrificed to that of the drawing-room floor; during the nineteenth century this was a common practice in London mansions. The name York House has been used at various times for other houses occupied by various Dukes of York, including those now known as Cumberland House, Dover House, Lancaster House and The Albany.

Sudan–United Kingdom relations are foreign relations between Sudan and the United Kingdom. Sudan has an embassy in London whilst the United Kingdom has an embassy in Khartoum. Most of the recent relations between the two countries centre on the region of Darfur.

The Embassy of Sudan in London is the diplomatic mission of Sudan in the United Kingdom.In 2013 the embassy was the site of a protest following a crackdown against protestors in Khartoum opposed to cuts in a fuel subsidy.

St James's Palace is the most senior royal palace in London, the capital of the United Kingdom. The palace gives its name to the Court of St James's, which is the monarch's royal court, and is located in the City of Westminster in London. Although no longer the principal residence of the monarch, it is the ceremonial meeting place of the Accession Council, the office of the Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps, and the London residence of several members of the royal family. Built by order of Henry VIII in the 1530s on the site of an isolated leper hospital dedicated to Saint James the Less, the palace was secondary in importance to the Palace of Whitehall for most Tudor and Stuart monarchs. Initially surrounded by a deer park and gardens, it was generally used as a hunting lodge and retreat from the formal court and occasionally a royal guest house. After the destruction by fire of Whitehall, the palace increased in importance during the reigns of the early Hanoverian monarchs but was displaced by Buckingham Palace in the late 18th and the early 19th centuries. After decades of being used increasingly for only formal occasions, the move was formalised by Queen Victoria in 1837. The palace now houses a number of official offices, societies and collections, and all ambassadors and high commissioners to the United Kingdom are still accredited to the Court of St James's. The palace's Chapel Royal is still used for functions of the British royal family. The palace was mainly built between 1531 and 1536 in red-brick, and its architecture is primarily Tudor in style. The Queen's Chapel was added in 1620s, and Clarence House was built directly next to it in the 1820s. A fire in 1809 destroyed parts of the palace, including the monarch's private apartments, which were never replaced. Some 17th-century interiors survive, but most were remodelled in the 19th century.

Friary Court is a part of St James's Palace in London, England. It is used after the death of a reigning monarch. The Accession Council meets to declare the new monarch from the deceased monarch's line. Once the monarch has made a sacred oath to the council, the Garter King of Arms steps onto the Proclamation Gallery which overlooks Friary Court to announce the new monarch. Friary Court has also been used in association with several other ceremonial functions, such as the christening of Prince George of Wales in the adjoining Chapel Royal. Aside from ceremonial functions it hosts royal charity events of which the Royal Family are an integral part.

Mark Masons' Hall in London is the headquarters of The Grand Lodge of Mark Master Masons of England and Wales, which is also responsible for the Royal Ark Mariner degree. It is located in 86 St James's Street in the central London district of St James's, opposite St James's Palace. While Freemasons' Hall is the headquarters of the United Grand Lodge of England and the Supreme Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of England, Mark Masons' Hall is the home of several other important appendant orders of Freemasonry in England and Wales.

Berry Bros. & Rudd (BBR) is a family-run British wine and spirits merchant founded in London in 1698. Since then, the company has grown from a small coffee shop into an international business with six offices worldwide. As well as the wines, such as en primeur from places like Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Rhône and Italy, the company also sells wines and spirits under its own-label range, Berry Bros. & Rudd's Own Selection. Other services it offers include wine investment, wine storage, wine tastings, events and educational courses.

Bridgewater House is a townhouse located at 14 Cleveland Row in the St James's area of London, England. It is a Grade I listed building.

Lock & Co. Hatters (formally James Lock and Company Limited) is the world's oldest hat shop, the world's 34th oldest family-owned business and is a Royal warrant holder. Its shop is located at 6 St James's Street, London, and is a Grade II* listed building.

Chutney Mary is a fine dining Indian restaurant in London, founded in 1990 by Ranjit Mathrani & Namita Panjabi through their restaurant company whose current name is MW Eat. It has received considerable critical acclaim over the years. It was originally in Kings Road Chelsea, but relocated to St James's, London in 2015.Chutney Mary pioneered in redefining the public face of Indian cuisines by showcasing the gourmet foods from 6 to 8 different regions of India at any one time. It had the rigorous philosophy that the foods of the different regions could best be cooked by the chefs from that region.It was an extremely ambitious undertaking and akin to having a pan European gourmet. Chutney Mary was probably the first Indian restaurant in the world to trace the regional provenance of each dish. Chutney Mary was also pioneered as an Indian restaurant in taking wines seriously, and led the way in the pairing of Indian food and wine.The regional provenance and the dishes on the Chutney Mary proved the trailblazer for the supermarket packaged foods – e.g. Waitrose which from the mid-1990s started prepared dishes with the regional provenance and with names from the Chutney Mary menu.