Clive Steps, King Charles Street, SW1A 2AQ

Phone:

020-7930 6961

Website:

www.cwr.iwm.org.uk

Opening times:

Daily 9:30-18:00

How to get there:

Tube: Westminster

Entry fee:

Admission charge

Additional information:

Café and shop

The Cabinet War Rooms occupy the basement of the vast New Government Offices, built in 1899–1915, which span an area between Horse Guards Road to the west and Parliament Street to the east. An airless subterranean warren over two floors, the rooms are 10ft underground with reinforced concrete above. Constructed between June 1938 and August 1939 (completed a week before Britain’s declaration of war), they were the operations headquarters from which, secure from air raids, Britain’s Second World War effort was directed: here, Churchill, the War Cabinet, the Chiefs of Staff and their advisors planned British strategy. The rooms remain almost exactly as they were at the height of the war, with tin hats and gas masks still on their pegs. The books, maps and wall charts in the Map Room occupy the same positions as they did when the room was closed down on 16 August 1947. The Cabinet Room, used for War Cabinet meetings, remains uncannily intact, with Churchill’s chair, blotters and ‘utility’ pencils, as does Churchill’s bedroom and office, from where he made his stirring wartime radio broadcasts. The Transatlantic Telephone Room was where Churchill discussed crucial strategy with President Roosevelt.

In 2003 a suite of nine further rooms was opened—faithfully restored and reconstructed from wartime photographs—which had been used by Churchill’s wife and his private office staff, and which also included his private dining room. In February 2005, to mark the 40th anniversary of Churchill’s death, the Churchill Museum opened. At its heart is an interactive ‘lifeline’, surrounded by sections on, for instance, Churchill as War Leader and as a Cold War statesman.