Marlborough House
| Marlborough House |
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Coordinates: 51°30′18″N 0°8′9″W / 51.50500°N 0.13583°W
Marlborough House is a Grade I listed mansion in St James's, City of Westminster north of The Mall and east of St James's Palace and is the headquarters of the Commonwealth of Nations and the seat of the Commonwealth Secretariat. It was built for Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, the favourite and confidante of Queen Anne. For over a century it served as the London residence of the Dukes of Marlborough.
The Duchess wanted her new house to be "strong, plain and convenient and good". The architect Christopher Wren and his son of the same name designed a brick building with rusticated stone quoins (cornerstones) that was completed in 1711.
The house was taken up by the Crown in 1817. In the 1820s plans were drawn up to demolish Marlborough House and replace it with a terrace of similar dimensions to the two in neighbouring Carlton House Terrace, and this idea even featured on some contemporary maps, including Christopher and John Greenwood's large-scale London map of 1830, but the proposal was not implemented.
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