Editing 10 Downing Street (section)

=== 10 Downing Street and Kent's Treasury Building ===
At about the same time that William Kent was combining the Downing Street townhouse with the house at the back, he was also commissioned to design and construct a new Treasury building on the site of the old Tudor Cockpit located behind Downing Street. This project was completed in 1737 and included corridors connecting the Treasury building with 10 Downing Street allowing Walpole, as [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]] as well as First Lord of the Treasury, direct and convenient access to the Treasury offices. In effect the Treasury building became an annex of 10 Downing Street and its staff worked directly for Walpole on treasury, patronage and other public business. This arrangement remained in effect until the middle of the 19th century and until then all prime ministers who were also Chancellor took advantage of it. After Prime Minister [[Robert Peel]] "gave up" being Chancellor in 1841, and this separation of positions gradually became a convention of the constitution, a locked door was installed between the buildings limiting the Prime Minister's access to the Treasury and its staff. Due to bomb damage in 1940, the Treasury relocated to the [[Government Offices Great George Street]]. Then in 1963 the Cabinet Office (including the Prime Minister's Office) and later the Civil Service (with the Prime minister as [[Minister for the Civil Service]]) moved into the renovated Kent Treasury Building. "Under (Prime Minister) Blair . . . the locked door, symbolically and physically dividing No. 10 from the Cabinet Office, was passed through with such frequency that its meaning was lost."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Blick |first=Andrew |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/742600769 |title=Premiership : the development, nature and power of the British Prime Minister |date=2010 |publisher=Imprint Academic |others=G. W. Jones |isbn=978-1-84540-647-9 |location=Exeter |pages=134–135 and 144-145|oclc=742600769}}</ref>