Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum

About Cabinet War Rooms and Churchill Museum

Museum in London

The Churchill War Rooms is a museum in London and one of the five branches of the Imperial War Museum, comprising 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 the statesman Winston Churchill. It lies in Westminster beneath the Treasury building between Whitehall and Horse Guards Road, not far from Downing Street. Construction of the rooms began in 1938 and they became fully operational on 27 August 1939, a week before Britain declared war on Germany; they remained in use throughout the war until abandoned in August 1945 after the surrender of Japan, and their corridors and rooms are preserved almost exactly as they were left, including the Cabinet Room, the Map Room, Churchill's bedroom and the secret transatlantic telephone room. Their historic value was recognised after the war and the Ministry of Works took charge of their preservation, with very limited numbers visiting by appointment, until the Imperial War Museum took over and opened them to the public in April 1984; they reopened in 2005 after a major redevelopment together with the Churchill Museum, the world's first permanent museum dedicated to Churchill's life and wartime achievements, and the name was shortened to Churchill War Rooms in 2010. It is one of the most evocative Second World War sites in London, telling vividly how the war was directed from underground.

Where:

London, United Kingdom