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The Churchill War Rooms is a museum in London, England, consisting of the Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum. It’s located in Westminster.
Introduction to the Churchill War Rooms
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) directed World War II from the Cabinet War Rooms. They were constructed underneath the Treasury Building in 1938 and became fully operational on August 27, 1939, a week before Great Britain declared war on Germany. The Cabinet War Rooms remained in operation until they were abandoned in August 1945, after the surrender of Japan. They were opened to the public on April 4, 1984, in a ceremony led by Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013).
Visiting the Churchill War Rooms
The Churchill War Rooms are open daily from 9:30am to 6pm. Admission is £32 for adults, £28.80 for visitors aged 60 and over and students, and £16 for children from 5-15 (as of September 2024). Children under 5 are admitted free of charge. An excellent complimentary audioguide is included in the admission price. Allow at least 90 minutes for your visit. The nearest Tube station is Westminster. Check the official website for more info.
Cabinet Room
The first part of the visit takes you past the Cabinet Room, where Churchill held 115 Cabinet meetings from May 1940 to March 28, 1945. It was used only once under Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940), in October 1939. The room is displayed exactly how it would have looked before a meeting.
From there, we walked past a shaft leading down to living quarters of soldiers and staff working at the Cabinet War Rooms.
Main Corridor
The main corridor led us past the Prime Minister’s Principal Private Secretary’s Room and the Weather Indicator. The Weather Indicator would let staff know what the situation was above ground, but not necessarily the weather. Fine & Warm would suggest everything was calm, while Windy would suggest heavy bombing was occurring.
The corridor led to a small museum containing artifacts, files, and photos from the Cabinet War Rooms. Several quotes and stories from staff were on display as well.
A tiny room attached the museum was the Transatlantic Telephone Room. Staff believed it was a private toilet for Churchill, but in reality it’s where he would secretly speak to the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Churchill Museum at the Churchill War Rooms
The tour of the Churchill War Rooms continues through the Churchill Museum, which is dedicated to the life of Winston Churchill (1874-1965). A digital interactive table sits in the center of the museum with a timeline of his life. The timeline contains over 2,000 images, videos, and documents, and is continuously being updated.
Throughout the museum, there’s an unbelievable amount of information related to Churchill’s childhood, military service, time as Prime Minister, and post-war life. It can be overwhelming, and a visitor can spend hours inside this section of the Churchill War Cabinet alone.
The Churchill Museum contains a wealth of objects from different periods of Churchill’s life, including his hat and bottles of his favorite champagne, a Nazi propaganda poster, and the door from 10 Downing Street.
Private Bedrooms
After visiting the Churchill Museum, the path continues back through the Cabinet War Rooms, visiting the private bedrooms of several members of Churchill’s staff. First is the room occupied by the Prime Minister’s Detectives (bodyguards), followed by Brendan Bracken (1901-1958, Minister of Information), Major Desmond Morton (1891-1971, Military Adviser), Commander Tommy Thompson (1894-1966, Aide de Camp), and Norman Brook (1902-1967, Deputy Secretary to the War Cabinet). You can’t enter the rooms, but you can peek inside and see what they would have looked like.
The Prime Minister’s Dining Room, Clementine Churchill’s (1885-1977) room, and the Prime Minister’s Kitchen are located along the same corridor.
Chiefs of Staff Room
At the end of the corridor is the Chiefs of Staff Room. It contains huge maps on all three walls. If you look carefully during your visit, you can see a small drawing of Hitler on the map to the left (not visible in the picture). It was made by a staff member during World War II.
Operational Rooms
Next, we walked past some of the operational rooms, including the BBC Broadcasting Equipment Room, Switchboard Room, Typing Pool, and the Emergency Office and Sleeping Accommodations.
General Hastings Ismay’s (1887-1965) room, the Private Secretaries’ Office, and the room of Sir Edward Bridges (1892-1969, Cabinet Secretary) followed.
The GHQ Home Forces and Advanced Headquarters of the GHQ Home Forces is where the Commander-in-Chief and his staff would work.
From there, we walked through a corridor with a key rack containing original keys to the rooms in the Cabinet War Rooms.
Tunnel
We then walked through a tunnel made through a massive slab of concrete poured in 1940, after Churchill discovered the rooms were not strong enough to withstand a direct hit from a bomb. He ordered concrete poured between the ceiling of the basement and the ground floor as well as between several sections of the Cabinet War Rooms.
Map Room
The Map Room was the most important room in the complex. It was the central command room of the war and was never empty. Shifts of officers from the army, navy, air force worked 24 hours a day.
A row of colored phones sits in the center, all connecting to different correspondents. The phones didn’t ring, but instead had lights to indicate an incoming call. The Map Room has remained exactly as it was when the lights were switched off in 1945.
Churchill’s Room
Finally, the tour finished with a look at Winston Churchill’s room. Although he only slept three nights in the room, he used it frequently. Churchill often took naps in the room and dictated speeches. He also gave four radio addresses directly from the room.
My Thoughts on the Churchill War Rooms
In my opinion, the Churchill War Rooms is one of the best museums you can visit in London. I learned more than I could have imagined about World War II and Churchill’s life in a short amount of time. Even if you aren’t into the history of the war, I highly recommend visiting the Churchill War Rooms.
