Durbar Court, India Office

Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt

1861-67

India Office, Whitehall, London

"The India Office courtyard, a tour de force of Italian Renaissance architecture and Minton's majolica, is [Wyatt's] masterpeice" (ODNB entry on Wyatt).

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Photograph and text 2006 by Jacqueline Banerjee.

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The India Office's inner courtyard was renamed Durbar Court in 1902, when some of the coronation festivities for King Edward VII took place there. The courtyard shows Wyatt at his most resplendent, and is generally considered to be his masterpiece. A fine marble floor is surrounded on all sides by "three storeys of columns and piers supporting arches. The ground floor Doric and first floor Ionic columns are of polished red Peterhead granite, while the top floor Corinthian columns are of grey Aberdeen granite. The lower frieze of Della Robbia ware by Minton, and the upper polychrome frieze form a rich contrast to the surrounding Portland stone" (5). The glass and cast-iron roof, reminiscent of Wyatt's earlier work on Paddington Station (1850-1854) and the Crystal Palace (1851), was added by 1868. Although the India Office itself was not opened until November 1867, the courtyard was first used in the summer of that year to receive (and no doubt impress) the Sultan of Turkey.

References

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office: History. Supplied by the Office on London's Open Day, 17 September 2006.

Last modified 27 May 2015