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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.
Admission charge
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