London Open House: Clipper boat at the Foreign and Commenwealth Office

The London Open House weekend is an opportunity to visit the insides of some of London's most iconic buildings.

One of the grandest of them all is the Foreign and Commonwealth Office built at the time of Empire and the sun never setting.

Rooms, hallways, staircases and courtyards echo back to the days of India and wars in far away places or the fallen of the World Wars.

This building was almost demolished in the architecturally dire 1960s (can you believe that?) but fortunately was saved, even if it does need continual TLC. For example, the staircase below is actually a double staircase with a mirror image behind this view, but this was covered up as it is being restored:

There was nods to Britain's maritime history around the building, but also the present, with this very detailed model of one of the Clipper Yacht race boats:

We were also welcomed by a video from.... well you can probably guess who: