The Cabinet War Rooms lie deep beneath the corridors of power in Whitehall.
During the summer and winter of 1940, Britain endured heavy bombardment by the German Luftwaffe in an attempt to weaken the Royal Air Force, before an invasion of Britain. Known as the Battle of Britain, the defence strategies and organisation of the British war effort was directed from the War Rooms beneath Whitehall.
The site of the War Rooms dates further back in time. Originally the location occupied the sprawling Old Palace of Whitehall, home to archbishops and then royal monarchs. Henry VIII was married to Anne Boleyn here and died within its confines and Charles I was executed close by. Fire eventually destroyed the Palace in the late 1600’s and the area became a maze of close knit town houses, long before the fortified subterranean chambers of the War Rooms were created.
With such a rich history, it is small wonder that a plethora of tales, strange sightings and inexplicable happenings, some closely connected with its wartime experience surround the War Rooms. Current staff report eerie noises, the scent of cigarette & cigar smoke, otherworldly footprints on a newly waxed floor and strange encounters with the ghosts of its wartime past.