Saturday 05 May
7:35pm - 9:05pm
Channel 4

It says a lot that whereas the US President resides in a massive mansion and the Russian premier has a medieval fortress, our own Prime Minister has to make do with running the country from a modest terraced house. In this one-off documentary, affable English Heritage chief Simon Thurley looks at buildings as manifestations of power and charts the history and symbolism of Downing Street, the Kremlin and the White House and what they tell us about their respective nations. It's full of diverting details, including one neat architectural gag: when he redesigned the state rooms at Downing Street in the 1980s, architect Quinlan Terry included above a doorway, as a cheeky reference to Mrs T, a tiny goldleaf figure of a thatcher. 

File Information:

DVBT-T (Freeview) Capture
Converted using Gordian Knot
Resolution = 512x272
Video Codec = XviD
Audio = 128kbps CBR