bayonets

What this picture doesn't show is that the French uniform pants were red, which lead to enormous casualties through sniper fire in the first year of the war.

I believe the building in the background is the Old Admiralty and the parade ground itself is the Horse Guards Parade.

I think so too, they still Troop the Colour there.

Interesting detail: about 2/3 of the way to the right, in front of the line of guards and just behind the foreground figure, there is a second mounted figure who appears to be Indian. He's wearing a decorated turban of some kind, has a moustache, and doesn't look particularly old. You can see him in the medium size, but he stands out more in the larger sizes. Someone has tagged this "raj" -- so I can't be the only one who's noticed. I wonder who he is? Also more apparent in the larger size: masses of people standing on a balcony in the background, and at almost every window!

Well spotted CM! Isn't that interesting. I'd guess he was some visiting dignitary but I don't have the faintest idea who.

My guess is that they are from India/Hindustan.

They are marching to the barracks....on the other side of that bridge.

Lovely!

The building at top right of this one is the same as the building at top left of this (earlier) one nearby:

Niall McAuley Spotted your note for the "works" on the bridge. Was it a swing bridge?

The narrow part of the bridge nearest the camera was a lifting section to allow sailing ships past. You can see some cogs in the mechanism at the bottom of the narrow section. This has since been replaced with a wider but uglier flat concrete span visible here:

Things in 1922 were unchanged since the the GeoHive OS 25" (which has an incorrect survery date of 1888 attached, but is actually after 1905.) The Bank is still there, the Woollen Mills burned down in the 1940s and a Radisson Blu is there now, the Methodist Church is still there but the steeple is gone, and the Post Office is gone too, replaced by a rather ugly Bank building.