This discovery gives us an insight into one of the most secretive units … operating during WWII,” FLS archaeologist Matt Ritchie tells the Scotsman ’s Alison Campsie. “It’s quite rare to find these bunkers as their locations were always kept secret—most were buried or lost.” While the better known Churchill War Rooms, a British government command center throughout the war, is open to the public as part of the Imperial War Museum, tours of Down Street are a much more infrequent delight. Work began in the summer of 1938 to turn some basement storage rooms far under the Treasury into what was then called the Central War Room, which comprised at first little more than a map room and a meeting area. It was particularly convenient for MPs since it was situated almost halfway between No 10 and the Houses of Parliament. During the Munich crisis of September 1938, the rooms were kept fully staffed in case war broke out, but they did not become fully operational until a week before the war started the following year. What had only really started out as a "temporary" expedient until some custom-built bunker was created elsewhere wound up servicing Britain's senior strategists for the next six years. Visits made in 2011 to visitor attractions in membership with ALVA". Association of Leading Visitor Attractions . Retrieved 25 April 2012.

AOC Archaeology took laser scans of the bunker, producing computer models of its location in the forest.

The Rooms were opened to the public by Mrs Thatcher on 4 April 1984 in a ceremony attended by Churchill family members and former Cabinet War Rooms staff. At first the Rooms were administered by the museum on behalf of Department for the Environment; in 1989 responsibility was transferred to the Imperial War Museum. [35] [36] During the height of the Blitz, Churchill often held meetings at unusual times of the day and night; sometimes, they would carry on long after midnight (to the private fury of some of his staff who, unlike him, had not had the benefit of an afternoon nap). But unconventional though he was as a war leader, Churchill understood the importance of maintaining morale, and from Room 60 he delivered several BBC broadcasts to the British nation, its empire and commonwealth, the US and occupied Europe. On 26 September 1940, the rooms survived a near-miss when a bomb hit the Clive Steps almost directly above them, which prompted the authorities to construct a huge concrete slab to protect the cabinet room itself. Although at least 140 bombs had fallen on that area of Whitehall by the following February, the rooms escaped serious damage. Betty Green, a secretary working there at the time, reminisced: "I used to spend every other night sleeping in the office ... sometimes I was there for about three nights running because I just couldn't get home, so in some ways I was fortunate that one could get a good night's sleep because you didn't hear the bombs raining down, which is just as well, because we'd have all been buried alive in the Cabinet War Rooms." a b c Finch, Cressida (Summer 2009). "A short history of the Cabinet War Rooms 1945-1984" (PDF). Despatches: The Magazine of the Friends of the Imperial War Museum. London: Imperial War Museum: 18–22 . Retrieved 25 April 2012. [ permanent dead link] Asbury, Jonathan (2019). Churchill War Rooms Guidebook (6thed.). London: IWM Publishing. p.7. ISBN 978-1-904897-55-2.

The second and last War Cabinet meeting took place in 1941, where a review of the Australian war effort was presented by the Australian premier Robert Menzies. Churchill was not in attendance due to a bronchial cold, so instead the meeting was chaired by Clement Atlee, the Lord Privy Seal. The bunker consists of some forty rooms on two floors, with the most notable being the cabinet room with seating for up to 30 people, and a large map room. Image Credit : Markus Milligan Deep under Whitehall lies a labyrinth of offices, map rooms and sleeping quarters whose very existence was kept a mortal secret from the Nazis. For this was where Churchill's war cabinet and military chiefs met to plan the strategy that was eventually to bring victory over Hitler in the Second World War. Restored today to exactly the condition they were left in at the end of the war in August 1945, the Cabinet War Rooms are a powerfully evocative time capsule. Military historian Richard Holmes has written a superb book that explains their central role in Britain's finest hour.

Churchill’s Secret Bunker today

But while anyone can tour the War Rooms for themselves today, what they can’t do is go behind the glass to see the artifacts in the detail that Asbury shares in his book. Ironically, while low-level staff worked there permanently, Churchill preferred meeting above ground. Even during the 1940–41 Blitz, leaders met in the bunker at night, when air raids were likely, but elsewhere during the day. Use by senior staff declined sharply in 1942 and 1943, peaking again in early 1944 during the “little Blitz” and later that year when V-1s and V-2s posed a risk.

Waterfield, Giles 'The Churchill Museum: Ministry of sound' Museum Practice No.30 (Summer 2005) pp.18-21 On 15 August 1945, Japan surrendered, bringing an end to the war. The following day, the lights in the Map Room were simply turned off and the staff vacated their offices. Several were cleared and used for other purposes, but the Cabinet Room, Map Room, Transatlantic Telephone Room and Churchill's bedroom were preserved for their historic value. [31] During World War I, writes veteran British military historian Holmes, German aircraft dropped about 300 tons of bombs on Britain, causing 1,500 deaths and a good deal of terror. These sorties had no effect on the war’s outcome but great influence later, as British leaders assumed bombing would determine the outcome of the next war. In 1936 the Air Ministry estimated that raids on London in any new conflict would kill 60,000 during the first week (in fact, 80,000 Londoners died during all of World War II). Working on an assumption that “the bomber will always get through,” British leaders decided the best way to deter a potential enemy was to match his bombing capacity (a take on “mutual assured destruction” two decades before the Cold War nuclear standoff). Thus, when rearmament began, the Royal Air Force clamored for bombers. In 1937, realizing it could not afford them, it switched to defensive (and far cheaper) fighters. We now know what British intelligence didn’t—that Germany ignored the prevailing obsession with bombing. Adolf Hitler intended the Luftwaffeas tactical support for ground forces and never built a heavy-bomber fleet. Kennedy, Maev (9 April 2003) The Guardian Restored underground apartments opened to public. Accessed 28 July 2009.The Churchill War Rooms is a museum in London and one of the five branches of the Imperial War Museum. The museum comprises the Cabinet War Rooms, a historic underground complex that housed a British government command centre throughout the Second World War, and the Churchill Museum, a biographical museum exploring the life of British statesman Winston Churchill. We would never talk about what we were trained to do,” Trevor Miners, who was 16 years old when he volunteered with the Auxiliary Units in Oxfordshire, told BBC News in 2013. “One of my unit was even sent a white feather by someone who thought he was a coward for not going out to fight, but we knew different.” During World War I, writes veteran British military historian Holmes, German aircraft dropped about 300 tons of bombs on Britain, causing 1,500 deaths and a good deal of terror. These sorties had no effect on the war’s outcome but great influence later, as British leaders assumed bombing would determine the outcome of the next war. In 1936 the Air Ministry estimated that raids on London in any new conflict would kill 60,000 during the first week (in fact, 80,000 Londoners died during all of World War II). Working on an assumption that “the bomber will always get through,” British leaders decided the best way to deter a potential enemy was to match his bombing capacity (a take on “mutual assured destruction” two decades before the Cold War nuclear standoff). Thus, when rearmament began, the Royal Air Force clamored for bombers. In 1937, realizing it could not afford them, it switched to defensive (and far cheaper) fighters. We now know what British intelligence didn’t—that Germany ignored the prevailing obsession with bombing. Adolf Hitler intended the Luftwaffe as tactical support for ground forces and never built a heavy-bomber fleet. a b Hansard, 8 March 1948; 'War Cabinet Rooms HC Deb 8 March 1948 vol 448 c115W' Hansard 1803-2005. Accessed 20 January 2010. Down Street opened in 1907 and served the Piccadilly line but by 1932 it had already closed. In the heart of affluent Mayfair, a short walking distance from what are now Hyde Park Corner and Green Park tube stations, it was an underused station. In addition, it was particularly deep underground and there were long passageways taking it under the busy Piccadilly thoroughfare.

The other Hidden London tours which are restarting for the first time since March 2020 are of the disused stations and tunnels at Euston, Moorgate and Aldwych, all of which have their own unique character and histories. Rose, Steve (1 June 2012). "Constructive criticism: the week in architecture". The Guardian . Retrieved 19 June 2012. Staff lived and worked down here, working shifts of up to 12 hours, often overnight, perhaps only surfacing for air in the upper world every ten to 14 days. Grimy baths and toilets are what remains of the washroom facilities, while soot obscures the patterned wallpaper in the executive sleeping quarters. According to Asbury, almost immediately after the war, a small stream of visitors were brought into the rooms for unofficial tours, even as government officials continued to toil away on secret Cold War projects in several of the rooms (with sensitive documents sometimes left out in the open). By the late 1940s, more official tours began to take place, and an effort to preserve the rooms (many of which had been significantly altered when they were put to new use after the war) began. Interest in the War Rooms steadily built until the Imperial War Museum was asked to take it over and open it up fully to the public in 1984. In the early 2000s, an expansion to the War Rooms opened up more of the original complex for view, in addition to adding a museum dedicated to Churchill. Historian and guide Siddy Holloway meets us at ground level, where the distinctive Leslie Green oxblood-tiled arches of the facade are still the same as at the many other famous Edwardian Tube stations he designed, including Covent Garden and Russell Square.

Getting to Churchill’s Secret Bunker

The best niche histories teach readers new information about oft-covered events, and this World War II account of Winston Churchill’s underground headquarters is an admirable example. Winston Churchill broadcast these words from a secret underground command center in central London on September 11, 1940, just after Germany began bombing the city. Now known as Churchill’s War Rooms, the complex was situated beneath Whitehall and, for the next five years, would serve as the center of wartime operations. A lonely playing card on the floor of Churchill undeground bunker. Find out more on underground bunkers. With Secrets of Churchill’s War Rooms, you can go behind the glass partitions that separate the War Rooms from the visiting public, closer than ever before to where Churchill not only ran the war—but won it. This magnificent volume offers up-close photography of details in every room and provides access to sights unavailable on a simple tour of Churchill War Rooms. Buy