From a World War Two battleship to the bunker where the British government ran the war effort, there are some outstanding World War 2 sites in London to visit.
There are also two superb Museums, both free to visit, and reminders of the destruction caused by the Luftwaffe’s Blitz of London.
In this article I show you these and several other sites, from a memorial to a hushed-up disaster in London’s East End, to the RAF Museum where you can see some of the aircraft that fought in the Battle of Britain over 85 years ago. I also explain how to get to each of these sites, advise whether the attractions are free to visit, and how to book tickets for those where they are required.
I hope you find it useful.
St Paul’s Cathedral
St Paul’s Cathedral’s survival of the London Blitz was a symbol of the stoic resistance of the British people to the Luftwaffe’s campaign to intimidate and ultimately break their spirit during the Battle of Britain.
It’s the subject of an iconic photograph by Daily Mail photographer Herbert Mason,shot from the rooftop of his publication’s offices on 29th December 1940. In his photograph, the dome of St Paul’s remains seemingly unscathed, while fires from destroyed buildings burn all around it. It’s one of the most iconic images of the entire Second World War, and indeed perhaps British history. Due to copyright restrictions I’m unable to display it here, so I’ve made do with several images of St Paul’s of my own.
The survival of St Paul’s was due to the work of the St Paul’s Watch team, which was put in place there on the orders of Winston Churchill, and an enormous helping of good luck. Sir Christopher Wren’s great Cathedral could have easily suffered the same fate as its predecessor, Old St Paul’s, which burned down during the Great Fire of London in 1666.
The Cathedral did suffer two direct hits during the Blitz. The first bomb hit the east end of the Cathedral on 10th October 1940, and another bomb caused immense damage to the north transept on 16th April 1941. Another bomb landed very close to the west front of St Paul’s but miraculously it failed to explode.
Along with Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s is one of the two greatest churches in London, and an absolute must-see. It’s the finest English Baroque church ever built, with a suitably grand and gilded interior. Its crypt is the final resting place of such notables as Admiral Lord Nelson and Sir Christopher Wren himself. And a climb up the dome takes you to one of the very best viewpoints in London.
Tickets; Unless you’re attending a service, entry is paid only. And you can book your St Paul’s Cathedral tickets here.
Churchill War Rooms
For many, the Churchill War Rooms may be the best of all London World War 2 sites to visit. These underground rooms in Westminster were the nerve centre of the British war effort, where decisions were made affecting everything from the Battle of Britain to D-Day and beyond. As someone with a lifelong interest in the Second World War, this is one of the ultimate World War Two sites in Europe to visit, and even if you only have one day in London, I’d look to fit it into your itinerary.
The exhibition is divided into two parts. The first covers Winston Churchill himself, looking back over his life and career, including perceptions of him in the UK and abroad. Unsurprisingly he was detested by Hitler and the Nazis, and it’s intriguing to see a Nazi propaganda poster accusing him of being the man who invented aerial bombing of civilian targets (incorrect – that’s propaganda for you). And he was also depicted as a ‘Monstre’ by the Vichy France regime – it would have been more effective if the depiction of Churchill even slightly resembled him!
The second part of the exhibition covers the day-to-day functioning of the British war headquarters. Many of the rooms are populated with mannequins to make the exhibits more lifelike, including the broadcast booth (from which Churchill would make some of his most famous speeches), map rooms where military operations would be planned and reviewed, and a telephone room which looks frenetic even with mannequins! The sight of several people in the room, with a multitude of telephones, gives you a strong idea of how busy this place would have been.
Tickets: You can book your Churchill War Rooms entry and audio guide here – the ticket also includes an audio guide to Political London.
Getting there: The Churchill War Rooms are on the corner of Horse Guards Road and King Charles Street. From Parliament Square, head along Great George Street towards St James’s Park and Buckingham Palace, and take the right turn onto Horse Guards Road. The Churchill War Rooms are on your right, close to the Clive Steps and the statue of Sir Robert Clive.
See Also: Visiting The Churchill War Rooms London – The Complete Guide
Sir Winston Churchill Statue, Parliament Square
The statue of Winston Churchill in Parliament Square is one of the most famous statues in London, and one of a series of sculptures of major political figures in the Square.
The distinctive statue – with Churchill bent over, leaning on his walking stick – was the work of Ivor Roberts-Jones, who used his friend, Welsh artist Kyffin Williams, to model for him.
He had to make some alterations to the statue when one of the donors suggested that the forehead bore too much of a resemblance to that of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
Getting there: the statue of Churchill is in the garden in the centre of Parliament Square. If you’re travelling there on the Tube, take exit 4 from Westminster station.
Churches In London Destroyed In The Blitz
The ruins of several London churches are among the most visible reminders of the devastation caused by the Blitz. Whereas many ‘bomb patches’ were built over decades ago, the remnants of some churches remain, left as memorials and reminders of the destructiveness of war.
Two of these churches are within a few metres of St Paul’s – an indication of how close the Cathedral came to much worse damage. The first of these is St Augustine’s Watling Street, whose tower stands close to the east end of the Cathedral. The tower, another Wren construction, was completed in 1695, twelve years after the rest of the small church was finished. It was destroyed during the Blitz in 1941, and the tower is now part of St Paul’s Cathedral School.
Christ Church Greyfriars, a short distance to the north of St Paul’s, was one of the buildings that burned in the famous Herbert Mason image of the Cathedral surrounded by smoke and fire. The tower was left standing, but the roof of the church collapsed, and very little from the interior was salvaged.
The tower was rebuilt, and converted to a private residence. The roofless body of the church remains, with an adjacent garden. The surrounding area is in the process of being pedestrianized, and will be known as Greyfriars Square.
Other churches destroyed during the Blitz include St Dunstan in the East, St Alban’s Wood Street, St Olave Old Jewry and St Mary Somerset.
HMS Belfast
Visiting HMS Belfast is a great way of immersing yourself in World War Two – albeit far removed from the experience of Londoners.
HMS Belfast was a Town class cruiser completed in early 1938, less than 18 months before the (anticipated) outbreak of World War Two. The ship was seriously damaged by a German mine in November 1939 while enforcing the naval blockade of Germany, and underwent repairs until 1942.
Once relaunched, HMS Belfast was used to protect Arctic convoys bringing supplies to the Arctic ports of the Soviet Union, and the ship also played a part in the Battle of the North Cape in which the German battleship Scharnhorst was sunk. It then saw action in the D-Day Landings on the Normandy beaches in June 1944. It was also later deployed in the Far East in 1945, and later in the Korean War.
HMS Belfast is an enormous ship, moored permanently between London Bridge and Tower Bridge on the South Bank of the Thames. You can visit nine decks, exploring the engine room, seeing the sonar and radar screens, and being confronted by so many dials and valves is quite a daunting and bewildering experience.
The visit also covers the sailors’ living quarters, from their incredibly cramped bunk beds on which they slept to the kitchen with its permanent whiff of traditional British cooking, which wasn’t to many visitors’ taste!
If you’re visiting London with kids, we found that our son was far more intrigued by HMS Belfast than he was by the Churchill War Rooms. He enjoyed sitting in the Captain’s Chair (there was quite a queue for that), and also walking around the outer decks and seeing the ship’s guns up close. Well worth half a day of your time.
Imperial War Museum
Along with the likes of the National Gallery and British Museum, visiting the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth (also known as IWM London) is free. It’s only a short walk or bus ride from Waterloo station, but is located in a relatively untouristed part of Central London.
Historians and anyone with an avid interest in war could spend days just visiting this Museum, never mind its other four branches (also including the Churchill War Rooms and HMS Belfast). Its collection is staggering. And the sections of the Second World War and the Holocaust are intense and absorbing.
For me the standout aspect is the vast number of contemporary testimonies, eyewitness accounts of what it was like to live during World War Two, whether it was serving overseas, surviving a Luftwaffe bombing raid or being separated from your parents and sent away to live in the countryside.
The Holocaust exhibition is also excellent, exploring its origins in racist comments which grew to discrimination against Jews, the stripping away of their citizens’ rights and confinement and starvation in the ghettoes across occupied central and eastern Europe. This ended with the death squads and extermination camps where over six million lives were taken away.
Seeing this – and any other exhibition on the subject – is more important than ever, especially given the open rehabilitation of racism in political life across the world. Because the comments of certain world leaders and cohorts (with whose names I refuse to tarnish my website) are where it all starts, and places like Treblinka and Auschwitz are where it could end up all over again.
National Army Museum
The National Army Museum in Chelsea (a stone’s throw from the famous Physic Garden) is another must-see for lovers of military history, telling the story of the British Army from the 17th century to the present day.
Covering over 400 years of history means that it doesn’t concentrate as closely on the Second World War as the IWM, but I still recommend a visit. Much of the permanent exhibition is devoted to the development of the Army, as well as the life of a soldier through the centuries, including those serving in the UK and abroad in its once immense empire. The stories are told brilliantly, with a range of artefacts from the skeleton of Napoleon’s horse to the lamp Florence Nightingale used in the field hospital at Scutari in the Crimean War.
The exhibition focuses most on World War Two in the Conflict in Europe section on the third floor. It touches on the daily life of soldiers in different campaigns around the world – there is currently an excellent one on the Burma campaign. There are many references to the Second World War, but most of these are part of the wider context about the history of the Army, and what life in the Army has been like down the centuries.
An excellent Museum, and free too.
Battle of Britain Monument
Winston Churchill famously said, ”Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” The ‘few’ were the airmen who doggedly fought off the Luftwaffe during their early attacks on the country, between July and September 1940.
In all, 2,937 airmen flew sorties against the Luftwaffe, and 544 of these died during the Battle of Britain, with hundreds more dying before the end of the War. They flew from 23 different airfields across southeast England.
The 25-metre-long sculpture by Paul Day was unveiled in 2005. It’s a series of figures from across British society who all contributed in different ways to the effort to stave off the Nazi invasion. It includes airmen running to their planes, and also figures as varied as spotters on the ground, women working in armaments factories and survivors of the Blitz.
The Monument is on Victoria Embankment, to the north of the Houses of Parliament, and is free to visit.
Nearest Tube: Westminster (Circle, District and Jubilee lines)
Bethnal Green Tube Station Disaster Memorial
One of the greatest tragedies of London in World War Two came about without a Luftwaffe plane in the sky, or a bomb being dropped. One of the worst civilian disasters in British history came about because of panic, causing the deaths of 173 Londoners, 62 of them children.
Tube stations were a regular refuge for locals seeking shelter from Luftwaffe bombing raids. An air-raid warning siren was the cue for people to rush to the nearest Underground station to seek safety. On the evening of 3rd March 1943, the siren sounded and, as usual, many headed for Bethnal Green Tube station.
That night there was an added sense of urgency, as bombing raids were expected following recent Allied attacks on Berlin. After the siren sounded, people could hear the sound of gunfire – which it turned out was from British test firing in nearby Victoria Park. The staircase entrance was blacked out in case of an air raid, and a surge of people sought refuge in the Tube station.
In the commotion, some people fell down the darkened stairs, causing an enormous crush. Most of those who died were asphyxiated. News of the disaster was suppressed on government orders. It would have been a devastating blow to British morale, and Churchill was concerned that news of it would encourage the Nazis to try to sow further panic with more air raids.
The full story was only told after the end of World War Two. The disaster is commemorated by the Stairway to Heaven sculpture by local architects Harry Patticas and Jens Borstlemann. It is in the form of an inverted staircase, with the surnames of the victims on each side. One of the most poignant London World War 2 sites.
Strand Tube Station
London Tube stations didn’t just provide shelter for citizens of London. They were also sometimes used to shelter precious works of art.
In the case of Strand station – despite its sign, widely known as Aldwych station – it was used in both the First and Seconds World Wars. In 1917 the station and tunnels were used to house around 300 works from the nearby National Gallery on Trafalgar Square. During the Second World War the station and tunnels were used by the British Museum to house priceless artworks, including the Parthenon Marbles.
Aldwych station was never a busy station, and between the 1960s and 1990s only peak hour weekday services stopped there. It was eventually closed in 1994, and has been used as a film location for productions as diverse as Atonement, the BBC’s Sherlock and The Prodigy’s Firestarter video.
The station’s low footfall was in some ways its saving grace, as it meant that an early 20th-century station was preserved in near-original condition. And it’s open for tours run by the nearby London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. It’s one of the great hidden gems in London – and you can book your Aldwych station tour here.
World War 2 Sites Near London
RAF Museum Hendon
One of the reasons I rate London possibly the best city in the world to visit is its extraordinary range of museums. Add in the fact that many of them are free to visit, and I can’t think of another city with such a strong offering, made available to all. The Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon, west London, is also free to visit, and a fantastic experience for anyone with an interest in World War Two.
The Museum covers the history of the RAF from its foundation in 1918 to its centenary. The exhibition is spread over six hangars, with hangars 3, 4 and 5 devoted to the Battle of Britain and the Second World War.
Hangar 3 is home to four aircraft which fought in the Battle of Britain. Each side is represented by two planes, including the iconic British Spitfire and a Hawker Hurricane. Later in the War, it was the British who were doing the bombing, and Hangar 5 is home to a Lancaster bomber and a de Havilland Mosquito, which did reconnaissance missions for the bombers.
Getting there: the RAF Museum is a 10-minute walk from Colindale station, which is in Zone 4 of the Edgware branch of the Northern Line. Just make sure you get on an Edgware line train – the others run to High Barnet ort Mill Hill East.
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is one of the most fascinating World War 2 sites in Britain. The complex, built in the grounds of a mansion in Buckinghamshire (near the town of Milton Keynes), was the top-secret communications hub where the elusive German Enigma codes were eventually deciphered.
The people working in these few huts contributed hugely to the eventual Allied victory in World War Two. Once the Enigma codes had been cracked, the Allies were a step ahead of the Germans in many of their operations, knowing what their next moves would be, enabling Allied forces to remain a step ahead of them on many occasions. Most of the exhibition is concentrated in the huts, where the likes of Alan Turing once worked.
Regular direct trains from London Euston take between 35 minutes and an hour.
You can book your Bletchley Park tickets here – they include a guided tour, and as many return visits as you wish within one calendar year.
Where To Stay In London
***** – Royal Garden Hotel – world-class 5-star luxury on Kensington High Street
**** – The Clermont London, Victoria – 19th-century opulence, ideal location for getting around London, next to London Victoria train station
**** – The Westminster London, Curio Collection by Hilton – highly-rated hotel less than ten minutes’ walk from the heart of Westminster, close to Pimlico Tube station
**** – Park Plaza London Riverbank – awesome location near Lambeth Bridge, river-facing rooms have stunning views of the Houses of Parliament
** – Kensington Gardens Hotel – one of the better London budget options, close to Kensington Gardens and Notting Hill Gate
World War 2 Sites In London – Final Thoughts
I hope you have found this article helpful. London is so rich in history, especially this fraught period, and these sites give you so much insight into this fascinating time.
For anyone with an interest in World War Two, here are some related articles you may find interesting:
15 Best Berlin World War 2 Sites
Prague World War 2 Sites – discover Prague’s Second World War locations
Heydrich Assassination Site Prague – where the ‘Butcher of Prague’ was attacked and eventually killed by the Czech Resistance
Nuremberg Nazi Sites – seven sites including the infamous Nazi Party Rally Grounds
Visiting Auschwitz – Birkenau – Helpful Tips And What To Expect
Visiting Terezin Concentration Camp – complete guide to the infamous Theresienstadt Ghetto near Prague
And here is a selection additional articles I have written on London:
16 Famous Statues In London Not To Miss
34 Famous Streets In London To Explore
16 Old Streets In London – London’s Oldest Streets
25 Most Beautiful Churches in London To Visit
Where To Find The Best Red Telephone Boxes In London
Visiting Westminster Abbey – London’s Astounding Royal Church
15 Best Things To Do In West London
Marc Bolan Shrine London – the shrine to the late, great T Rex singer
Visiting The Golden Hinde London – on board Sir Francis Drake’s recreated pirate ship
Sunrise In London – 10 Best Places To See It
Sunsets In London – The Best 20 Locations