NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 310, 25 August 1932, Page 2

NO. 10 DOWNING STREET

No one looking at the front of No. 10 Downing Street would imagine that it had a very spacious garden at the back, and yet behind that rather dour block of buildings there is a stretch of old-world garden with shady paths, tall trees, and thick bushes, separated by a high wall from the Horse Guards. It has been the scene of many Ministerial garden parties, and during the month Mrs. Baldwin and Miss MacDonald will give another charity garden party there. Along one side of the garden runs a flagged terrace supposed to be worn by th'e feet of anxious Ministers pacing to and fro in great crises. It is said that the first impression on entering the Prime Minister's house is that one has wandered into a shooting lodge. All round the walls of the hall there are heads and antlers of big game. These were brought there by Mr. _ Asquith, Lord Oxf ord's son, when his father was Prime Minister, and they have been allowed to remain through' successive administrations. The walls of the staircase are hung with the portraits of all the past Prime Ministers who have lived at Downing Street, from Sir Robert WaiP°le onwards, but Mr. MacDonald's is not among them, for it is not etiquette for a reigning Prime Minister to have his portrait on his historic staircase.