Queen Mary's Steps - Whitehall Palace, Embankment, London, UK
N 51° 30.276 W 000° 07.431
30U E 699602 N 5709863
A remnant from a bygone era when the west bank of The River Thames extended further inland than in does today.
Waymark Code: WMC8RV
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 08/09/2011
Views: 7
The plaque for this remnant reads as follows:
"Queen Mary's Steps, Whitehall Palace / In 1691, Sir Christopher Wren designed for Queen Mary II / a terrace overlooking the Thames in front of the old river wall / of Whitehall Palace built by Henry VIII. This terrace projecting / about 70 feet into the bed of the river, was about 280 feet long. / As it involved the destruction of an earlier private landing stage / a curving flight of stairs was made at each end to give access / from the Royal Apartments to the State Barge. /
In 1939 excavations for the new Government Building revealed the river wall of the Tudor Palace, the later terrace wall / and the northern flight of steps. The upper portion of the steps / has been repaired and can be seen. A reconstructed length of the / terrace can be seen immediately to the left of the steps and a / rebuilt section of the river wall behind and above the terrace."
The remnant is fenced-off as the Ministry of Defence building is directly behind it. It can be seen from beyond the fence and the co-ordinates given are for close to the information plaque.
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The Palace of Whitehall (or Palace of White Hall) was the main residence of the English monarchs in London from 1530 until 1698 when all except Inigo Jones's 1622 Banqueting House was destroyed by fire. Before the fire it had grown to be the largest palace in Europe, with over 1,500 rooms, overtaking the Vatican and Versailles.
The palace gives its name, Whitehall, to the road on which many of the current administrative buildings of the UK government are situated, and hence metonymically to the central government itself.
For further reading and image of the palace as well as the text source visit: (
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