WWII Secrets of Westminster Area, Churchill’s War Rooms & Museum

The journey, in full

Your guided walking tour begins in the streets of Westminster. We’ll take in classic London sites such as 10 Downing Street, Whitehall, the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. The last stop on our walk is the Cenotaph, which was originally built as a memorial for the First World War and is now the UK’s primary national war memorial. We’ll come across the statue of Sir Winston Churchill and the monument to the women of WWII. Hear about the governments and royal monarchs who were forced into exile in London as Germany overtook the nations of Europe. Your guide will share enlightening insights as to how the people of London coped during the years of war. Learn about life in London during the Blitz, the evacuation of the children to the countryside, food rationing and living with bombing raids that devastated large parts of the city. Hear about how the government moved underground to be able to continue working, and how Winston Churchill would sometimes stand on the rooftops in Whitehall at night watching the bombs rain down on London. Next, it’s time to head underground, down the steps to the wartime bunker of the Churchill War Rooms, where you’ll enjoy an audio-guided visit of the Churchill Museum. The bunker is a unique piece of living history, an underground maze of rooms that once buzzed with round-the-clock planning and plotting, strategies and secrets. Learn the true stories about what life was like for those who worked in these dark rooms during the tense days and nights of the Second World War as they deciphered enemy communications and created maps of the army’s movements. See how the staff, confined to these rooms, needed to use a primitive form of sun lamps to get a sufficient amount of vitamin D and how their activities here were top secret; not even their families could know what they did for a living! At the Churchill Museum, you will discover fascinating details and stories about the incredible life and legacy of Sir Winston Churchill and you will be able to hear real audio of his inspiring wartime speeches. Using the Museum’s rich interactive exhibits, this museum elaborates on Churchill’s private and public life, from his love of his wife and of painting to his special relationship with U.S. President Roosevelt, with whom he shared decisions that would alter the course of history and therefore the world. We’ll even have the opportunity to see the original No. 10 door that Churchill walked through after becoming prime minister! Your experience concludes with the visit to the rest of the war rooms, preserved exactly as they were left the day the lights were switched off in 1945! Here, the thick walls teem with history. This was the nerve center of Prime Minister Churchill’s war efforts, where he and the British cabinet planned and prepared the defeat of Hitler. The signs indicating the weather outside, which are still on display here, are a strong reminder of the staff’s isolation; without these, the staff had no way of knowing what the weather was on a given day. As you go deeper into the labyrinth of rooms, you’ll discover how life and work continued underground, from top-secret conversations between Churchill and President Roosevelt in the Transatlantic Telephone Room to simple domestic concerns in Churchill’s kitchen. Wander for as long as you like before making your way out in your own time.