Goose-Pie House

The site now lies under the southeast corner of the Old War Office Building on Whitehall, near the Gurkha Memorial statue on Horse Guards Avenue.

Vanbrugh was a well-known playwright, and was friends with the prominent Whigs through his membership of the Kit-Cat Club, but he had no previous formal education in drawing or architectural design.

The outermost bays, in plain ashlars, projected further on the ground floor only, with a broken triangular pediment above an opening with a round-headed arch supported by pillars.

Its size and proportions, and peculiar design, with unusual mix of elevations and projections, led the house to be unflatteringly likened by Jonathan Swift to a "goose-pie", a dish known for its odd shape.

(Swift returned to his abuse of Vanbrugh in a poem in 1708, writing: "Van’s genius, without thought or lecture, // Is hugely turn’d to architecture".)