Palace of Whitehall westward spread of the flames. John Evelyn noted succinctly on 5 January: "Whitehall burnt! nothing but walls and ruins left." Beside the Banqueting House, some buildings survived in Scotland Yard and some facing the park, along with the so-called Holbein Gate, eventually demolished in 1769. During the fire many works of art were destroyed, probably including Michelangelo's "Cupid", a famous sculpture bought as part of the Gonzaga collections in the seventeenth century. Also lost were Hans Holbein the Younger's iconic mural "Portrait of Henry VIII" and Gian Lorenzo Bernini's marble portrait bust of King Charles I. The Banqueting House is
Ministry of Defence Main Building (United Kingdom) Ministry of Defence Main Building (United Kingdom) The Ministry of Defence Main Building or MOD Main Building also known as MOD Whitehall or originally as the Whitehall Gardens Building, is a grade I listed government office building located on Whitehall in London. The building was designed by E. Vincent Harris in 1915 and constructed between 1939 and 1959 on the site of the Palace of Whitehall. It was initially occupied by the Air Ministry and the Board of Trade before in 1964 becoming the current home of the Ministry of Defence. By the 1990s the building was no longer considered