Churchill War Rooms

The Churchill War Rooms is a museum in London situated near the building of Her Majesty's Treasury. It is one of five museums that together make up the Imperial War Museum, the British military museum established in 1917.

The museum contains the Cabinet War Rooms, a network of underground galleries which during the Second World War was used as a a command centre by the British government, as well as the Churchill Museum, a biographical museum dedicated to the life of Winston Churchill. The Cabinet War Rooms were operational from August 1939 till the surrender of Japan in August 1945.

In 1936, the governmental body responsible for the Royal Air Force decided that in case of war it would be necessary to move the main government offices to a remote and secure location. After various negotiations and consultations, the basements of the New Public Offices, a government building near Parliament Square, which today houses the headquarters of HM Treasury (Her Majesty's Treasury) were chosen as the best place to serve this purpose. On 22 October 1940, after a heavy bombardment, the Cabinet War Rooms was reinforced with a huge layer of concrete known as 'The Slab'. After the war, the underground offices were abandoned and gradually became dilapidated. The preservation of the Cabinet War Rooms became the responsibility of the Ministry of Works and later, in 1984, of the Department for the Environment. Finally, in 1989, the management of the offices was handed over to the Imperial War Museum.

In 2005, the Churchill War Rooms were redeveloped as a biographical museum. A year later it received the Council of Europe Museum Prize.