Scotland Yard

For other uses, see Scotland Yard (disambiguation).

Scotland Yard
New Scotland Yard
The iconic sign outside the New Scotland Yard building on Victoria Embankment, City of Westminster. The sign came to prominence when it was first located outside an earlier Scotland Yard building.
Map
General information
Address
Town or cityCity of Westminster, Greater London

Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs. Its name derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had its main public entrance on the Westminster street called Great Scotland Yard.[1] The Scotland Yard entrance became the public entrance, and over time "Scotland Yard" came to be used not only as the common name of the headquarters building, but also as a metonym for the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) itself and police officers, especially detectives, who serve in it.[2] The New York Times wrote in 1964 that, just as Wall Street gave its name to New York's financial district, Scotland Yard became the name for police activity in London.[3]

The force moved from Great Scotland Yard in 1890, to a newly completed building on the Victoria Embankment, and the name "New Scotland Yard" was adopted for the new headquarters.[4] An adjacent building was completed in 1906. A third building was added in 1940. In 1967 the MPS consolidated its headquarters from the three-building complex to a tall, newly constructed "New Scotland Yard" building on Broadway in nearby Victoria. In 2013, it was announced that the force would move again to the Victoria Embankment at Westminster's Curtis Green Building, which following tradition was renamed "New Scotland Yard".[5] This move to the latest New Scotland Yard was completed in 2016.[6][7]

  1. ^ "History of the Metropolitan Police Service". Metropolitan Police Service. Archived from the original on 3 July 2013. Retrieved 22 March 2017.
  2. ^ Newton, Stephen Leslie (1992). German/English Lexicographical Contrasts: City, Queen (quean), Yard. University of California, Berkeley. p. 75.
  3. ^ Farnsworth, Clyde H. (15 May 1964). "Move is planned by Scotland Yard". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  4. ^ Hutton, Mike (15 March 2012). The Story of Soho: The Windmill Years 1932–1964. p. 104. ISBN 978-1-445-60684-2.
  5. ^ "New Metropolitan Police HQ announced as Curtis Green Building". BBC News. 20 May 2013. Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference MetroPoliceStaffMove was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference RoyalOpeningPostponed was invoked but never defined (see the help page).