10 Downing St

Ten Downing Street is recognizable by its black front door and the small brass letterbox still inscribed with the title First Lord of the Treasury. While it appears to be a solitary, modest terraced house, it is actually a complex of buildings joined together over centuries. The original townhouses were constructed between sixteen eighty-two and sixteen eighty-four by George Downing, a man often described by his contemporaries as a duplicitous spy. He commissioned the architect Christopher Wren to design the street, but the houses were built quickly and cheaply on marshy ground, resulting in shallow, unstable foundations that have plagued the residence for generations.