one of the most recognisable doors in the world.
10 Downing Street began as a late-17th-century redevelopment on a site that had earlier medieval and Tudor buildings, and it became the Prime Minister’s official residence in 1735 when Robert Walpole took it as an official home rather than a personal gift. Its most famous features—the black door, fanlight, doorknocker, and checked entrance hall—were added or standardized during later 18th-century
The street itself was created by Sir George Downing in the 1680s, when he developed a small terrace of houses designed by Sir Christopher Wren; today’s Number 10 emerged from that original row and was not always numbered as 10. Before that, the site had been used for a brewery and then a house associated with Sir Thomas Knyvet, the man tied to the arrest of Guy Fawkes. After Robert Walpole moved in, the house gradually became the symbolic center of British government, and by the 20th century it had been firmly established as the Prime Minister’s office and residence.
Interesting facts…
the black brick façade is painted, because the original yellow bricks were darkened by centuries of smoke and then preserved in that look during restoration. The letterbox is decorative, not functional, and the famous door handle does not operate in the normal way because the entrance is electronically controlled.