Old Admiralty Building

The Old Admiralty Building stands in central London, near St James’s Park, within the historic Admiralty complex. Red brick, Portland stone, slate roofs, and green copper-topped towers shape its distinctive exterior. Inside, mosaic floors, metalwork balustrades, and generous windows reflect a practical design for naval constructors’ detailed drawings.

Completed in 1905 after three construction phases, the building replaced townhouses that could no longer accommodate Admiralty staff. Leeming and Leeming, two brothers from Halifax, designed the structure. Its French Grand Siècle and English Baroque influences once seemed unusual for a government office, while wartime bombing left visible damage on an inner courtyard wall. In 1943, Room 13 in the basement hosted planning for Operation Mincemeat, which misdirected Germany about the Allies’ intended invasion.

Ian Fleming worked here as assistant to Admiral John Godfrey, whose Room 39 connects the building with James Bond’s fictional M. The Government Art Collection also occupies rooms here, bringing historic, modern, and contemporary British works into the complex. A refurbishment from 2014 to 2020 added updated workspaces while conserving heritage details, including hundreds of oak doors. The courtyard offers a quiet contrast to the building’s government offices, historic rooms, and central London setting.