Somerset House
/ˌsʌməset ˈhaʊs/
/ˌsʌmərset ˈhaʊs/
- a large, grand 18th-century building in central London, between the Strand and the Thames. It is now an art gallery, but from the 1830s to the 1970s it contained the main offices of the Inland Revenue and the General Register Office, where records of all births, marriages and deaths in the country were kept. Some people still refer to the new General Register Office as Somerset House.