The clocks are mounted on a domed tower over the archway between Whitehall and Horse Guards Parade. Both are identical. The clock face is round stone. Around the outer edge are numerals for each five minutes and inside that are two rings, close together, that shown marks for the individual minutes. The hour marks are inside the minute marks and are traditional Roman numerals used on clocks. All the marks and hands are gold coloured. The black mark between the "10" minute mark on each clock should be noted - see the extract below.
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A GUARD FOR THE KING, CIVIL WAR… AND AN EXECUTION
Military presence on Horse Guards began in December 1641 when King Charles I commissioned "a Court of Guards in the Tiltyard before Whitehall" to house his personal guards and to protect the Palace. It was too late though, with the onset of the Civil War, Charles was forced to flee to Oxford and the area was taken over by the Parliamentarians. Seven years later, on a cold January day in 1649, the King was brought from St James's Palace through the Horse Guards area to the Banqueting House in Whitehall where a scaffold had been erected. There, after a wait of several hours while the warrant was signed, he was beheaded. A black mark on both clock faces at Horse Guards commemorates the time of his execution -2pm.
THE OLD HORSE GUARDS BUILDING – SECURITY, SENTRIES AND A ROYAL PRIVILEGE
After his restoration in May 1660, Charles II needing a trusted military guard, created the original Household Cavalry and the Grenadier and Coldstream Guards. No such standing army had ever existed and there were no barracks to house them so in 1663 Charles had the first Horse Guards building constructed where Cromwell had stabled his guard on the old Tiltyard. Red-brick and costing around £4,000, it laid the blueprint for today's building, comprising three-storey wings around a courtyard with a central arch surmounted by a clock and cupola leading through to the park. Over one hundred horses were stabled on the ground floor. As today, there were two sentry boxes on the Whitehall side for Household Cavalry sentries to guard the Palace gates opposite as well as Horse Guards itself. The northern half of the building housed the duty troops of the Household Cavalry while the Foot Guard were housed on the south side with their own small courtyard formed from an area of the old Tiltyard not built upon. From this the Foot Guard acquired its name as the Tiltyard Guard.
The Household Cavalry Sentries stood guard in their sentry boxes as today, with duty detachments providing travelling escorts whenever members of the Royal Family left the Palace of Whitehall. The Foot Guards Tiltyard Guard supported the Palace security and were also stationed at fixed posts across St James's Park, which served as the Royal Family's private leisure garden. At that time the only entrance to it was through the Horse Guards building and entry was strictly controlled by a system of passes. This tradition continues today with the allocation of oval plastic passes (formerly ivory) to selected courtiers. Only the monarch has the right to ride through Horse Guards Arch without displaying a pass to sentries.
ABOUT FACE!
In 1698 the Palace of Whitehall was almost completely destroyed by fire and the Royal Court moved to St James's Palace in the Park behind Horse Guards. Having always had the Palace in front of them to guard, overnight old Horse Guards found that responsibility transferred to its rear. However, Horse Guards remained as the only official entrance to the Court and has done so ever since.
THE “NEW” BUILDING – A TIME FOR CHANGE
Over the years the old building was increasingly used as a military administrative base and had become overcrowded and cramped. It had also fallen into disrepair and by 1745 the sentries were said to be in danger from falling masonry. In that year King George II agreed to replace the building and the design was entrusted to William Kent, who had also designed the new Treasury building just to the south. Not permitted to encroach on St James's Park, Kent kept the basic design of the old building, including the domed clock tower, but extended the wings around the courtyard, doubling its capacity. The building was intended as a dramatic Palladian-style entrance to what was going to be a new Palace where the old Palace of Whitehall had stood. However, George III instead bought Buckingham Palace as his principle residence, which of course is still in use today. Sadly, Kent died in 1748, a year before building started but the project was taken over by his assistant John Vardy and was completed in ten years at a cost of £65,000 (twice the original estimate!). When the original clock from the old building failed in 1768, a superlative new clock was built by Thwaites & Co., the oldest clockmakers in London. It continued the previous clock's proud tradition as the most accurate timepiece in West London until the installation of Big Ben in 1859. High above the arch on the Whitehall side are the Royal Arms of George II, carved in 1753. Halfway through the arch on the stonework overheard are the letters STMW/STMF, to show that the parish boundary of St Margaret's, Westminster and St Martin-in-the-Fields passes from East to West exactly through the centre of the building.
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