Page:Catalogue of a collection of early drawings and pictures of London, with some contemporary furniture (1920).djvu/60



there at the time of the execution of Charles I, after which Oliver Cromwell took possession of these lodgings, and it was probably in the veritable Cockpit that music was performed during his protectorate. There also plays were acted both in the time of Charles I and after the Restoration. Just before that event the lodgings were assigned to George Monck, who became Duke of Albemarle, and in Fisher's plan it is marked as part of his lodgings. As mentioned in describing No. 89, between the dates of the two pictures this architectural relic was obliterated by a brick building, which in turn gave way to Kent's Treasury. Until about 1806, the word Cockpit was applied to a famous but elusive political centre included in the Treasury and more or less on the site of Henry VIII's building. Lord Welby thought that the style "Treasury Chambers Cockpit" was known much later. The passage from Whitehall to the Treasury is partly lighted on the north side by a large window with mullions and transom, and on the south there is a two-light window of similar date. Both are involved externally in Tudor brickwork. On the ground floor a Tudor doorway survives, and all these must have been in the casing of the original passage that led to the Cockpit. As mistakes are frequent on the subject we will add that "Cockpit Steps" leading from Birdcage Walk into Dartmouth Street have no historical connection with Whitehall. They adjoined a later Cockpit surmounted by a cupola, which is marked in a map belonging to Strype's Stow 1720, and was taken down in 1816. There was also a "Royal Cockpit" in Tufton Street, Westminster, described in the "London Magazine," November 1822, and in the "Every Night Book" as late as 1827, which was probably the last in London.

To right of the Tudor Cockpit is a house with tiled roof and dormer windows, apparently that portion of the Prime Minister's official residence adjoining the Treasury and facing the garden, for although much altered, the points of resemblance are strong. In vol. ii of the Lond. Top. Soc. "Record," Mr. Spiers attributed the design of this building to Wren on account of a ground plan doubtless representing it, signed by him with the addition of the letters "S^r G^{ll}" and date 1677; but the present writer is of opinion that it already existed at the time, and, being on Crown land, that Wren merely signed the plan as Surveyor General. In the "Record" a plan by