Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms

The Cabinet War Rooms are in a maze of cellar rooms beneath the Government Office Building, north of Parliament Square.

In 1938, this storage basement was adapted as a secure inner sanctum, accessed only from the offices above. It was in these underground rooms that the War Cabinet, first under Neville Chamberlain, then Winston Churchill, met during World War II when London was being bombed by the Germans.

The Cabinet's underground headquarters included living quarters for government ministers and military leaders, and the Cabinet Room where many strategic decisions were taken. The rooms were protected by a 3 foot layer of concrete, but there is no evidence that the Germans ever discovered that it existed.

After 1945 the Cabinet War Rooms were abandoned and many of the 21 rooms were left untouched until the museum opened in 1984.

Administered by the Imperial War Museum, the museum has restored the rooms to their wartime condition, using old photographs for reference.

An audio tour guides visitors around the rooms.

Highlights include Churchill's desk, the old fashioned communications equipment and the telephone hotline to the White House. In the Map Room, which monitored the movement of Allied and Axis troops, the maps still show their markers.

Churchill's bedroom contains his nightshirt and chamber pot