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Somerset House

1796 establishments in EnglandArts centres in LondonCourtauld Institute of ArtGeorgian architecture in LondonGrade I listed buildings in the City of Westminster
Grade I listed educational buildingsGrade I listed government buildingsGrade I listed museum buildingsHM Revenue and CustomsHouses completed in 1796King's College LondonMuseums in the City of WestminsterNational government buildings in LondonNeoclassical architecture in LondonRoyal buildings in LondonStrand, LondonUse British English from February 2013Victoria EmbankmentWilliam Chambers buildings
The courtyard of Somerset House, Strand, London geograph.org.uk 1601172
The courtyard of Somerset House, Strand, London geograph.org.uk 1601172

Somerset House is a large Neoclassical complex situated on the south side of the Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames, just east of Waterloo Bridge. The Georgian era quadrangle was built on the site of a Tudor palace ("Old Somerset House") originally belonging to the Duke of Somerset. The present Somerset House was designed by Sir William Chambers, begun in 1776, and was further extended with Victorian era outer wings to the east and west in 1831 and 1856 respectively. The site of Somerset House stood directly on the River Thames until the Victoria Embankment parkway was built in the late 1860s.The great Georgian era structure was built to be a grand public building housing various government and public-benefit society offices. Its present tenants are a mixture of various organisations, generally centred around the arts and education.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Somerset House (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Somerset House
The Edmond J. Safra Fountain Court, London Covent Garden

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Wikipedia: Somerset HouseContinue reading on Wikipedia

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Latitude Longitude
N 51.511111111111 ° E -0.11694444444444 °
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Courtauld Institute of Art

The Edmond J. Safra Fountain Court
WC2R 1LA London, Covent Garden
England, United Kingdom
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The courtyard of Somerset House, Strand, London geograph.org.uk 1601172
The courtyard of Somerset House, Strand, London geograph.org.uk 1601172
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Strand Campus
Strand Campus

The Strand Campus is the founding campus of King's College London and is located on the Strand in the City of Westminster, sharing its frontage along the River Thames. The original campus comprises the Grade I listed King's Building of 1831 designed by Sir Robert Smirke, and the college chapel, redesigned in 1864 by Sir George Gilbert Scott with the subsequent purchase of much of adjacent Surrey Street (including the Norfolk and Chesham Buildings) since the Second World War and the 1972 Strand Building. The Macadam Building of 1975 previously housed the Strand Campus Students' Union and is named after King's alumnus Sir Ivison Macadam, first President of the National Union of Students. The Strand Campus houses the arts and science faculties of King's, including the Faculties of Arts & Humanities, Law, Social Science & Public Policy and Natural & Mathematical Sciences (formerly Physical Sciences & Engineering & Computer Science). Since 2010, the campus has expanded rapidly to incorporate the East Wing of Somerset House and the Virginia Woolf Building next to LSE on Kingsway. On 10 March 2015, King's acquired a 50-year lease for the Aldwych Quarter site incorporating the historic grand Bush House building. It began occupation of the Bush House Building in September 2016 and will occupy the adjacent King House and Strand House from 2017 and Melbourne House from 2025. In October 2016, King's announced it had also taken a separate 50-year lease on the North-West Block which it will incorporate from 2018.The nearest Underground stations are Temple, Charing Cross and Covent Garden.

Civil Service Rifles War Memorial
Civil Service Rifles War Memorial

The Civil Service Rifles War Memorial is a First World War memorial located on the riverside terrace at Somerset House in central London, England. Designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and unveiled in 1924, the memorial commemorates the 1,240 members of the Prince of Wales' Own Civil Service Rifles regiment who were killed in the First World War. They were Territorial Force reservists, drawn largely from the British Civil Service, which at that time had many staff based at Somerset House. Both battalions of the expanded Civil Service Rifles were disbanded shortly after the war; the regiment amalgamated with the Queen's Westminster Rifles, but former members established an Old Comrades Association to keep the regiment's traditions alive. The association began raising funds for a war memorial in 1920, and the Prince of Wales unveiled the memorial on 27 January 1924. It takes the form of a single rectangular column surmounted by a sculpture of an urn and flanked by painted stone flags, the Union Flag on one side and the regimental colour on the other. The base on which the column stands is inscribed with the regiment's battle honours, while an inscription on the column denotes that a scroll containing the names of the fallen was placed inside. The memorial first stood in the quadrangle of Somerset House, which the Civil Service Rifles had used as a parade ground, but the civil service began to vacate Somerset House towards the end of the 20th century. As the building and its courtyard were re-purposed, the memorial was moved to the riverside terrace in the late 1990s. Members of the regiment continued to attend Remembrance Sunday ceremonies until at least the late 1980s, by which time many former members were in their nineties; the last known surviving member of the regiment attended a rededication ceremony in 2002. The memorial was designated a grade II listed building in 1987, which was upgraded to grade II* in November 2015 when it became part of a national collection of Lutyens' war memorials.