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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The OWO and the Spy Bar

The Old War Office, where military intelligence was born and five Bond films were shot, now a hotel with a cocktail bar named for the spies who worked in it.

HeadquartersBond & SmileyGo inside

The Old War Office on Whitehall, at night.

Also in Power & Politics.

The War Office of 1906 had a thousand rooms and two and a half miles of corridor, and MI5 grew out of the directorate that ran counter-espionage from inside it; Churchill, Lloyd George, Kitchener and T. E. Lawrence all had desks here. Bond has used its steps and corridors since Octopussy, most recently in Skyfall, Spectre and No Time to Die, and after a seven-year conversion the building reopened in 2023 as Raffles London at The OWO. The Spy Bar is in the basement, in what were the intelligence offices, with a cocktail list built round the building's history; you do not need to be staying to drink there.

Where
57 Whitehall, SW1A 2BX
Nearest station
Charing Cross · 3 min walk

Hours

MondayClosed
Tuesday17:00 – 01:00
Wednesday17:00 – 01:00
Thursday17:00 – 01:00
Friday17:00 – 01:00
Saturday17:00 – 01:00
SundayClosed

Hours from the page that lists them, checked 5 September 2026.

The bar is inside Raffles London at The OWO; the hotel's public rooms are open to non-guests.

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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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