Somerset House history: a Tudor palace, tax offices and an ice rink

One summer lunchtime there was a Ferris wheel in the courtyard of Somerset House. It stood behind a bronze statue of George III, with rainbow-painted seating steps to one side and pink palm trees to the other. Nothing in the courtyard that day hinted at its past as a royal palace, a naval office and a tax office car park.

Somerset House is a stone quadrangle on the Strand, between Waterloo Bridge and King's College London. The building you see went up from 1776, designed by William Chambers as government offices. Before that, a Tudor palace stood on the site. Since 2000 it has been an arts centre run by a charity, open every day and free to walk into.

This post covers Somerset House history from the palace to the tax offices. It also looks at how an 18th-century office block pays its own way in the 2020s. Short answer: skaters, concerts, film crews and a lot of hired-out rooms.

Where does Somerset House history begin?

It begins with Edward Seymour. He was the uncle of the boy king Edward VI, and in 1547 he became Lord Protector and Duke of Somerset. That year, according to Somerset House's own history, he started building a palace by the river on the Strand.

He never lived to enjoy it for long. Seymour lost power, and in 1552 he was executed on Tower Hill. The Crown took the nearly finished house. Princess Elizabeth lived there from 1553 to 1558, in the years before she became Elizabeth I.

After that it was a house for queens. Anne of Denmark, wife of James I, moved in in 1603, and the palace was renamed Denmark House. In 1604 the Treaty of London, which ended the long war with Spain, was negotiated and signed there. Inigo Jones worked on the building for Anne. Between 1630 and 1635 he built a chapel for Henrietta Maria, the Catholic wife of Charles I.

The Civil War brought soldiers. Thomas Fairfax used the palace as a headquarters for the Parliamentary army. After the king's execution in 1649, Parliament sold off its contents. Inigo Jones died in the house in 1652, and in 1658 Oliver Cromwell's body lay in state there. Henrietta Maria came back after the Restoration. The Great Fire of 1666 stopped just short of the palace.

The last royal resident was Catherine of Braganza, widow of Charles II. She left in 1693.

Why was the Tudor palace demolished?

No king or queen lived there again. The old palace stayed on the riverbank for another eighty years, in slow decline. Canaletto painted views from its terrace around 1750. In 1775 Parliament passed an act to clear the site, and the demolition began that year.

The plan was to put government offices under one roof. William Chambers, one of the Crown's architects, started work in 1776. He designed a quadrangle around a large courtyard. There was a short wing on the Strand and a much longer front on the river. Historic England's list entry describes that river front as 45 bays wide, with a central pavilion.

It took decades. The Strand wing was finished and in use by 1780. The south wing, on the river, followed in 1786. All four sides were occupied by about 1790. When the building was declared complete in 1801, it had cost £462,323.

Later architects kept to Chambers' design. Robert Smirke added King's College on the east side from 1829. James Pennethorne built the New Wing on the west side between 1853 and 1856. From the outside it reads as one building, and it is listed Grade I.

Who worked in Somerset House before it was an arts centre?

The first tenants were not civil servants. The Royal Academy of Arts moved into the Strand wing in 1779, and the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries joined it in 1780. The Academy held its Summer Exhibition in these rooms until it moved out in 1837.

The Courtauld Institute of Art took over that same wing in 1989. I wrote a separate guide to the Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House. Its collection includes Van Gogh's Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, the painting many people come for.

Most of the rest was offices. In 1789 the Navy Board moved into grand rooms in the western half of the south wing, overlooking the river. It ran the business side of the Royal Navy. In the 1780s Joseph Wilton carved reliefs with a sea theme in Portland stone for that wing. The Stamp Office was there too. Its clerks applied the stamps that showed duty had been paid.

Two offices here touched almost every family in the country. From 1837 the General Register Office held the birth, marriage and death records for England and Wales at Somerset House. They stayed until 1970, when the registry moved to St Catherine's House nearby. The Inland Revenue, formed in 1849, spread through more of the building after the Admiralty staff left in 1873.

The Second World War reached it in 1940. A bomb hit the south wing, destroying sixteen rooms and a staircase. The repairs were finished in 1952.

The river mattered to these offices. When Chambers built Somerset House, there was no embankment here. The Thames came right up to the south wing. A great arch in the river front let boats and barges come into the building itself, to landing places inside.

The Victoria Embankment changed that. It was built out into the river and finished in 1870. A road, a pavement and gardens took the place of water. The water gates survive in the river front, but they open onto the Embankment, not the Thames.

When did Somerset House open to the public?

Until the late 1990s, the courtyard was a car park. It was covered in asphalt, and the cars of the civil servants working upstairs stood where the fountains are in 2026.

The change began with the Courtauld in 1989. In 1997 the Somerset House Trust was set up as a charity to run the building and open it up. The architects Dixon Jones redesigned the courtyard. In 2000 it opened to the public, along with the river terrace and the first winter ice rink.

Above the water gates is the river terrace. It was closed to the public for most of the 20th century. In 2000 it opened to visitors for the first time in more than a century. A footbridge from Waterloo Bridge leads straight onto it, and there is café and bar seating under tent-like canopies.

The fountains came with that redesign. The courtyard is called the Edmond J. Safra Fountain Court. It has 55 jets set into the cobbles, which throw water up to six metres high and are lit at night. Because they sit flush with the ground, they can be switched off. That clears the space for events in summer and the rink in winter.

The bronze statue in the courtyard is George III, by John Bacon, from the 1780s. Below the king lies Father Thames, one hand on an urn, with a cornucopia behind him. Queen Charlotte is said to have asked Bacon why he had made "so frightful a figure". The statue is listed Grade I.

How does Somerset House pay for itself?

Somerset House is run by the Somerset House Trust, a charity, and most of its money comes from what happens on site. According to a CNBC report, its income in the year to March 2023 was £21.2 million. There were 2.7 million visits in 2023. Very little of that income is public funding.

The ice rink is the best known of these earners. The first rink opened in the courtyard in 2000, and it has returned in most winters since, usually from mid-November into January. For the 2025–26 season, Time Out listed tickets from £11 to £26.

It is on my list of things to do in London in winter, and it sits a short walk from Christmas in Covent Garden.

Summer is the other big season. The Summer Series of open-air concerts started in 2001, and outdoor film screenings follow. London Fashion Week began holding shows here in 2009. The rooms and courtyard are hired out for fairs such as 1-54, the Contemporary African Art Fair. The London Design Biennale has been held here too.

Filming and private hire bring in more. The building's own filming page names Ridley Scott's Napoleon (2023) and Suffragette (2015) among the productions shot here. It also hosts weddings and proposals. This income helps keep the rent low for the artists in Somerset House Studios. They opened in the New Wing in 2016, with space for more than 100 artists and makers.

Money matters more since the tax office left. HMRC moved its staff out in stages, and by March 2013 the Trust ran the whole building. That ended 224 years of revenue services on the site.

The courtyard programme changes every year. The day I went, it was This Bright Land, a festival that ran from 1 to 29 August 2022. It was created by the designer Gareth Pugh and Carson McColl, residents of Somerset House Studios, with Somerset House.

At its centre was a 35-metre observation wheel with an audio piece of Londoners talking about their city. Around it stood rainbow-painted seating steps, a stage with floor cushions and a giant green teapot. There was a red telephone box by the wheel. A Wonder Garden made with Jo Malone London was part of the programme.

At lunchtime on that Monday, people sat along the rainbow steps and on the cushions below the stage. Near the statue there were flower beds with oversized mushrooms and blue butterflies. Pink palm trees stood over a group of pink garden chairs. The lettering in front of George III spelled out the festival's name.

What changed around Somerset House in the 2020s?

Two things changed the setting. In December 2022 the Strand Aldwych scheme opened outside the front entrance. Traffic was taken off this part of the Strand. More than 7,000 square metres of road became planted public space between Somerset House, Bush House and King's College.

Then, on Saturday 17 August 2024, a fire broke out in the west wing. More than 100 firefighters brought it under control. Nobody was hurt, and the art collections were not affected. The fire was contained to offices and storage in one part of the building. Somerset House began a phased reopening on 20 August, and exhibitions and events were back on 24 August.

In 2025 it marked 25 years as an arts centre. The programme included Step Inside, a weekend that opened up the whole building. George III stood through all of it, on the same plinth where he watched the civil servants park their cars.

Visiting Somerset House: Practical Notes

📍 Where: Strand, London WC2R 1LA, between Waterloo Bridge and King's College London. There are entrances on the Strand, Victoria Embankment, Lancaster Place and from Waterloo Bridge.

⏰ Opening: In September 2026 the building and courtyard were open 8am to 11pm. The Courtauld Gallery opened 10am to 6pm, and the fountains ran 10am to 6pm. Check the Somerset House website before you go.

📅 Open days: Every day except 25 December.

🎫 Admission: Free to walk in. The Courtauld Gallery, some exhibitions, the ice rink and the summer concerts need tickets.

🚇 Getting there: Temple station (District and Circle lines) is about 250 metres away. Covent Garden, Charing Cross and Embankment are 8 to 10 minutes on foot. Many buses stop on the Strand and Aldwych.

🚗 Parking: None on site. The nearest car park is on Parker Street, WC2B 5NT, inside the Congestion Charge zone.

☕ Food: Several cafés, bars and restaurants inside the building and on the river terrace.

⏳ How long: An hour for the courtyard, the terrace and a free exhibition. Add two hours for the Courtauld Gallery.

📷 Best time: A weekday morning for an empty courtyard with the fountains on. A December evening for the rink.

🗺️ Nearby: Covent Garden, the Royal Opera House, Waterloo Bridge, Temple and the Victoria Embankment.

♿ Access: Step-free entrances on the Strand, the Embankment and North Lancaster Place, with lifts inside. Some routes cross cobbles. Manual wheelchairs can be borrowed.

🧳 Left luggage: There is no cloakroom or luggage storage, so travel light.

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