Date: 27 January 2004 Adventures of Gamblegirl: Some facts on Number 10 History of the building: * Did you know that Downing Street stands on the site of a former brewery? * Or that Number 10 was originally Number 5? * Or that the last private resident of Number 10 was a Mr Chicken? Early History of the site: 10 Downing Street stands on what was once a piece of marshy and boggy land known as Thorney Island or the Island of Thorns. The 30 acre island lay between two branches of the River Tyburn which flowed from Hampstead Heath to the Thames. The Thames was wider and shallower in the past and a ford, near where Westminster Bridge now stands, joined the Roman road from Kent. The Romans therefore selected Thorney Island as a site for settlement. In later centuries King Canute (r.1017-35), who was said to have commanded the tide to stop to illustrate the limits of his powers to his courtiers, built a royal palace here. Then Edward the Confessor (r. 1042-66) and William I (r. 1066-87) built far more extensively, and Thorney Island or Westminster as it had become known, was established as the centre of Government and the Church. Traces of earlier buildings in the Number 10 garden: Traces of both Roman and Saxon buildings have been found within the grounds of Number 10. The earliest building known to have stood on the site of Downing Street was the Axe brewery owned by the Abbey of Abingdon - by the early 1500s, the brewery had fallen into disuse (yes it does answer the global qn of is this government taking the piss out of us?). All information courtsey of number 10 website: www.number-10.gov.uk