Duke Street, Westminster, which was off Whitehall between Charles Street and Downing Street, disappeared completely when the Foreign and Colonial Offices were built. Brunel occupied the house in Duke Street from the time of his marriage to Mary Horsley, sister of the painter John Horsley, in 1836. In 1848 he acquired the adjoining house and on the ground floor extended his offices, while in the room above he installed a grand Dining Room, known as the 'Shakespeare Room' on account of the paintings of subjects from the plays that lined the walls. The room itself was an early example of the revived Elizabethan taste in furniture and decoration.

The depiction in such detail of a working office is most unusual though it was more common with the advent of photography. The evidence of method and organisation is impressive, and lends some credence to Brunel's chilling reflection 'I shall most likely remain a bachelor and that is I think best for me. My profession is after all my only fit wife...'