⬆️Andrew (the tour guide from Westminster Abbey) telling us about the Churchill War Rooms (formerly the Cabinet War Rooms). The public entrance to the space is the domed roof near the center of the photo, next to the Treasury Building.
⬇️The map of the Churchill war rooms (left) and (right) the location of the rooms under the building. I did not know it was this big. I thought it was maybe four or five rooms at most.
⬆️The meeting room. Churchill's chair is in the center behind the red box. Still with gouges and scratches from his ring when he pounded the arm.
⬇️The weather station. "Fine & Warm" meant the staff could go out for air. "Windy" meant bombs expected, stay inside.
⬆️Churchill's liquor cabinet. I didn't know he was a functioning alcoholic. I really ought to read more about him.
⬇️A map of the area - the red dots are sites where bombs fell. The guide is pointing to where Churchill's bedroom was in the rooms, telling us how a bomb had fallen right outside the bedroom and, had it been live and exploded, Churchill and the staff in the war rooms likely wouldn't have survived. Thankfully it was a dud.
⬆️Some of the rooms, left in the same condition.
⬇️The Map Room, where staff tracked troop movements. August 16, 1944, is the last day the room was used - the calendar is still on the date. Evidently, the staff left the rooms, locked the door, and no one went in for 40 years till they decided to make it a museum. (I'm a little skeptical of that story...but at the same time it is believable because I've been in the basement of US government buildings and it really doesn't look like people have been there in decades either.)
⬆️Churchill's bedroom. He had large-scale maps posted on the walls and installed curtains so that whenever there were visitors, he could simply draw the curtains over the maps to hide troop movements. He did make a few BBC broadcast speeches from that desk.
⬇️The very exclusive Room 63, a water closet that came with its own watchman. But not really a water closet, that's just what they told everyone - it's actually the secure telephone room from which Churchill and FDR would speak.
As the story goes, the telephone line ran from here in the war rooms underground to Selfridge's, which was owned - at the time - by an American. The unit at Selfridge's scrambled the line, sent it overseas to the White House and FDR.
⬆️The War Rooms is also home to the Churchill Museum, which tells the life story of Winston Churchill and has many artifacts and objects from throughout his life - including his hat collection and many of the honors he received.
⬇️Those of you who've been around for awhile may remember that I'm deaf and have hearing aids/cochlear implant. So for me, this was absolutely fascinating: Winston Churchill's hearing aid. It's huge by today's standards, but incredibly compact for 1960s technology!
On the right, one of Churchill's paintings and his painting smock.
The bedroom for Churchill's protection officer and the Churchill dining room, mostly used by Mrs. Churchill.
I thought I had photos of these, but I either lost them or didn't get them. This is my favorite story from the tour.
When the Queen Mother was either doing work on one of her homes or had bought a new home and was getting ready to move into it, she wanted a stove/oven she was familiar with so she took one of the two stove/ovens from the kitchen in the War Rooms when the rooms were no longer in use. Fast forward 25-30ish years later, they've decided to open the Cabinet War Rooms as a public history museum and they're scouring Britain for period pieces to furnish and make up the rooms. The Queen Mother heard about this and gave them the stove/oven - the original stove/oven she had taken from the rooms all that time ago.
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