Your saves are on this device only.
Your browser may clear them at any time. You won't be able to see them on other devices. Create a free account or sign in to keep them safe in the cloud.
We've included every museum in London. Use the filters to find something for you.
The country house from which Dowding ran the Battle of Britain, with his office restored, on the hill above Stanmore.
Bentley Priory is a house of 1766 that John Soane enlarged for the Marquess of Abercorn and where Queen Adelaide, William IV's widow, died in 1849. The Air Ministry bought it in 1926, and on 14 July 1936 it became the headquarters of the new Fighter Command under Hugh Dowding. From here, in the summer of 1940, the Battle of Britain was directed: the reports from the radar chain and the Observer Corps came into the filter room to be sifted into a single picture, the operations room passed it to the sector stations that scrambled the squadrons, and Dowding, in the office upstairs that has been put back as it was, kept the reserves that won it. Fighter Command stayed until the RAF left in 2008, and the museum opened in the house in 2013, with the office, the rooms of the Few and a garden of memorials, the rest of the estate having become housing.
Submit a correction for this listing.
Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.