Mansion House is a rare surviving Georgian town palace in London.
With its magnificent interiors and elegant furniture, the Mansion
House provides the Lord Mayor of the City of London with living,
working and entertainment space. Built in the age of Hogarth, the
Mansion House, then as now, is a symbol of the City of London as
the world’s leading international financial and trading centre.
Click on the
Lord Mayor of the City of London to learn
more about the office today,
History of the Mansion House to learn more
about the building and its collections,
Inside the Mansion House for more detail on
individual rooms, and
History of the Government of the City of
London and
History of the Mayoralty for a brief
historical survey.
Life at the Mansion House
Mansion House was originally intended to enable the Lord Mayor to
represent the City in appropriate style, and it continues to fulfil
this function more than 250 years later.
The Mansion House is both a private residence for the Lord Mayor
and family, and a base for the Lord Mayor’s office, a department of
the City of London Corporation, and provides a location for
business meetings, conferences, banquets and entertaining. Some
40,000 people visit the Mansion House every year.
The Lord Mayor's office organises his overseas and domestic
programmes. See a
Typical Day for the Lord Mayor in London and
a
Typical day for the Lord Mayor overseas.
When not abroad, the Lord Mayor sees on average a head of state
or government at least once a month and hosts a finance minister or
ambassador weekly. These are usually highly focused meetings
between the visitors and City businesses, and they are part of a
busy schedule of business visitors/ meetings at Mansion
house.
Perhaps the most famous events at Mansion House are the dinners
and banquets. They have always been splendid occasions: once upon a
time they would last several hours, and guests would take food to
the window to hand down to waiting friends and servants.
Today the Lord Mayor hosts ten banquets a year which provide a
platform for ministers (at Guildhall), while every week sees
businesses and livery companies hold dinners at Mansion House, at
the invitation of the Lord Mayor.
Useful links
How to get to the Mansion House (2mb)
Email staff at
Mansion House
Tours of the Mansion House