Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms

Churchill on the phone to the American President

Beneath a fairly dull looking office building, around the corner from the Houses of Parliament, there is a rather scary looking staircase, dripping with water.  The only sign that it isn't an entrance to a boiler room is the guard standing out the front, and a small sign pointing to the Cabinet War Rooms.  It was here, underneath the streets, that the British second world war effort was headquartered.  When the bombs were falling it was decided that the safest course of action was to head underground.  Though even with a 1.5m thick concrete slab placed over the top of the headquarters, a direct hit would have destroyed everything.

Once the war was over everyone moved out again, and the rooms fell into disuse, and their preservation was passed through a number of departments, including the Department of Works and the Department for the Environment.  During this time only very limited numbers of the public could visit.  Eventually the Imperial War Museum got their hands on it and redevelopment commenced.  Now it is quite popular and all the rooms are intact, as they were during the time of the war.  Half the space is taken up by these Cabinet War Rooms and the other half is taken up by a museum to Churchill.

The door Churchill walked through

The War Rooms were really quite interesting.  At the time junior staff members would work long hours and then sleep underground as well.  There were typists working around the clock.  Churchill and his wife both had rooms there as well, though I think Churchill only spent a total of 3 nights there, and his wife didn't spend any.  In one of the bedrooms, there was a bed and a desk, just another bedroom, except this one had a bit of carpet under the desk.  Apparently that used to be a sign of status in the civil service, the more senior workers got some carpet.  I wonder if that is still the case?

The Churchill part of the museum was good, I just think they were missing some interesting facets.  I didn't really know all that much about Churchill going in, just that he was the Prime Minister during the war and liked to give speeches.  They had an awful lot of his stuff, spread over his entire life, and to be honest it felt like because he had a museum devoted to him, they felt they had to gloss over certain points.  There was some mention of a debacle in the Dardanelles by Churchill, but this was never elaborated on.  Upon later reading I find out that Churchill was responsible for the failed Gallipoli landings.  You would think there would be some Australian and New Zealand visitors who may be interested in a bit of a discussion around that.

It seemed Churchill liked his good food

The spooky corridors

Another point which was glossed over was the annihilation of Churchill's party (the Conservatives) in the first election after the end of the Second World war.  At this point there hadn't been an election for 10 years, and you would think that Churchill's popularity would be sky-high, after just defeating the Germans.  Instead his party got destroyed by the Labour party, but again this wasn't really elaborated on, I mean why was he so disliked, having just led the country to victory?

I did like the part where they talked about what a workaholic Churchill was.  They gave you a timeline as to a typical day of his.  He would wake up at 8am, then have breakfast in bed whilst he read the papers.  Eventually he would get up at 10am and have a bath and get dressed before having some meetings.  Then a one and a half hour break for lunch, with wine, before more meetings/work in the afternoon.  He also managed to fit in an afternoon nap, then another bath, before having dinner in the evening, with more wine.  I think he would get to bed by 1am.  I'm thinking that actually doesn't sound that strenuous, an afternoon nap?!? During the second world war? 

Anyway I would suggest a visit if only for the Cabinet War rooms, they were really quite interesting to see, and the complimentary audio tour is one of the good ones.

In the map room, each pin hole is where a cargo ship was sunk, seems a bit unbelievable

Telephones in the map room