Secrets & Espionage

Where the state kept its secrets and where the spies were made up: the bugged mansion, the bunkers, the headquarters you can only look at, the memorials to the agents, and the addresses of Bond and Smiley.

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Paddock, Dollis Hill

Churchill's other bunker: the forty-room reserve war rooms built under the Post Office research station in case Whitehall fell, used once and abandoned.

Bunkers & war rooms

Paddock was dug in 1939 and 1940 beneath the GPO's research station at Dollis Hill as the government's bolt-hole if the Cabinet War Rooms were bombed out; Churchill held one Cabinet meeting there in October 1940, found it damp and remote, and never went back, and the two floors of map rooms, cabinet room and BBC studio sat sealed until the site became a housing estate. Subterranea Britannica opens it a few days a year, with torches, water on the floor and the wartime paint peeling; it is the least restored and most atmospheric bunker in London.

Where
109 Brook Road, Dollis Hill, NW2 7DZ
Nearest station
Brent Cross West · 13 min walk

Open days two or three times a year, by Subterranea Britannica

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Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.

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