Garden of 10 and 11 Downing Street
The terrace and garden have provided a casual setting for many gatherings of First Lords with foreign dignitaries, Cabinet ministers, guests, and staff.
It was also the location of the first press conference announcing the Coalition Government between David Cameron's Conservatives and Nick Clegg's Liberal Democrats.
[2] In September 1941, Winston Churchill and his wife, Clementine, drank champagne in the garden with five "young Frenchmen" who had escaped from France in a canoe before arriving in Eastbourne after having spent 30 hours in the English Channel.
[1][5][6] In October 1929 The Times reported on the retirement after 40 years of Downing Street's head gardener, Harry Simpson.
Having originally started as a gardener in nearby St James's Park, he had worked in Downing Street under every Prime Minister from William Gladstone to Ramsay MacDonald.
[8] In a 1937 article for The Countryman, Neville Chamberlain related that he once spotted a rare leopard moth in the garden, and put a nesting box in the trees, which was later inhabited by a pair of blue tits.
[14] On 27 August 2024 Sir Keir Starmer, the UK Prime Minister, utilised the Rose Garden to unveil his plan to "Fix the foundations" of the country.
The garden's simple design of largely lawn with mature trees, rose beds and flowering shrubs remained unchanged for several years.
[1] Lambert's painting depicts rectilinear borders and a "formal grass parterre with small, box-edged beds filled with topiary, flowering plants and dwarf fruit trees".
[1] The third shell launched in the Provisional Irish Republican Army's mortar attack on Downing Street exploded in the garden, leaving a 1-meter crater.
[1] Since the advent of the 21st century the design of garden has reflected environmental concerns and features introduced have included a rose walk, box shaped beds and borders and curved paths.
The garden contained "strawberries, tomatoes, beetroot, parsnips, peppers, chard and courgettes" at the time of its public unveiling.
