Sometimes I just want to see really big guns. And Winston Churchill. And castles. And enemy artillery melted down into monuments to the victor’s everlasting glory. Then I want to drink tea. Luckily, London can oblige in all these areas and more.
As the heart of a globe-spanning empire that has fought or ruled over much of the planet, London has more than its share of military museums and memorials. One can’t walk around Westminster without seeing a reminder of the empire and its leaders, nor the many who died making that empire. They’re as common as Starbucks in Seattle but infinitely classier. So on my last trip to London I made it a point to seek out and visit as many military sights as I could, which in London can be a trip to itself.
Before visiting I did my research to find out what there was to see, where those things, what was nearby what else, and the best way to get around to make the most of my limited time in a city with limitless sightseeing potential.
Churchill War Rooms
The Churchill War Rooms, located under the Treasury Building and just off Parliament Square, can be easy to miss if you’re not looking for it. Originally the Cabinet War Rooms, it was a converted basement that was later fortified for additional bomb defense. From 1938-1945 it was used as a secret bunker by the government and military in the defense of Britain for World War II. At war’s end it was closed like a bunker-sized time capsule.
The museum, like other Imperial War Museum sites, has an informative audio tour that walked me through its corridors and rooms. This place differed from most museums in that the museum itself IS an artifact, preserved as it was while in service seventy years ago. The halls have dim lighting, hand-painted signs warn of today’s weather and daily schedules are still on the walls. Like on a Navy ship there’s no ceiling overhead, but exposed pipes and girders.
Original equipment, furniture and fixtures populate the rooms. The map room was a real highlight, as the giant wall map is the same one used throughout the war to plot the movement of British convoys. Walking down the hall of the map room period music played and was occasionally interrupted by the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, giving a speech.
Also in the War Rooms is a museum on the life of Winston Churchill with many interactive displays and artifacts. Though not necessarily made for them, it’s the most kid friendly part of the War Rooms with its touch screen displays and games.
Household Cavalry Museum
Just down the street from the War Rooms is the small Household Cavalry Museum. It’s the unit’s own museum so it stands apart from other museums in that all the artifact displays use the personal “we” and “us,” in lieu of more neutral language. “We fought at Waterloo and captured this standard,” for example. Its artifacts range from their 1661 founding to their recent Afghanistan deployment. The museum is part of the actual cavalry building, Horse Guards, and is built in the stable, half of which still has horses in it, though they’re separated from the museum by glass so the troopers can be observed while handling the animals. It was a quick museum to visit and provided a unique look into the history of Britain’s senior-most military regiment.
HMS Belfast
The light cruiser HMS Belfast is the best museum ship I’ve ever visited. A World War II and Korean War veteran, Belfast has a lot of history and just as importantly on a museum ship, a lot of open decks and spaces to visit. Nine decks from the bridge to the engine room are open and the spaces are decked out as if it was still 1945. A nice touch I’ve not seen in other museums was the addition of scent to certain spaces- I smelled that weird antiseptic odor of the medical department before entering and the bakery is both warmer inside and smells of fresh bread. Like with the War Rooms, it uses an audio tour and there are few placards to clutter up the ship and added to that feeling of being on an actual cruiser and not a museum.
Besides the static displays some spaces also contain interactive features and help explain how Belfast functioned. Walking through the fire and engine rooms gave a far better explanation of how a ship’s power plant works than engineering walkthroughs on active duty ships I’ve served on. Likewise, inside an aft 6” gun turret a video display explains Belfast’s role in fighting the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst. As the video plays, one of the guns, the same guns used to fight Scharnhorst and shell the beaches on D-Day, imitates loading and firing. The gun ‘booms’ and smoke fills the compartment as it would have during firing. Other interesting compartments are the fully functional radio room which is still used by local amateur radio operators and the Combat Information Center contains touch screen games based on 1960s exercises with the U.S. Navy.
The overall well-preserved state of Belfast and location on the River Thames beside the Tower Bridge and across from the Tower of London make the cruiser a great place to take photos from, as well as of. Belfast was a high point of my trip to London.
Tower of London
The Tower of London, which is a misnomer as it’s actually a castle, gets a bad reputation for its ridiculously long lines. Personally I refuse to stand in them on principle. That’s why I show up at opening. The tourist crowds don’t show up until about eleven which means the early riser has the place to himself for two hours. Even if it was just a castle the Tower would be worth the visit, it’s oldest part, the White Tower, dates back to the 1060s and the castle as a whole is very photogenic. But it’s not just a pretty photo op; the castle also has a lot going on inside with museums and multiple tours that kept me busy for six hours.
I took the tour with a Beefeater, one of the Yeoman Warders, who gave a very informative and entertaining telling of the Tower’s story. The Beefeaters are an interesting lot as they are all retired military with over twenty years’ service and live with their families inside the Tower walls.
Afterwards I went to see the Crown Jewels, which at 10 a.m. had no line to get in. Not only were the Crown Jewels there but also many of the older crowns, jewelry and golden doodads of royalty. The only downside is that the Jewels are under Royal Copyright, so no photography of them is allowed.
By time I left the Jewels the infamous line had formed, one which looked like it would take an hour to get through.
Other enjoyable visits I had inside the Tower were the Fusilier Museum, which was similar in style to the Household Cavalry and the White Tower. The White Tower is all about arms and armor. The first floor houses the “Line of Kings,” an exhibit that’s been at the Tower for three centuries. It features the many armors of British kings, both practical and ceremonial, mounted on horseback against a backdrop of captured French armor. Every suit was unique to its wearer, some were gilded and had elaborate engravings worked into them, which meant that even though there was lots of armor to see, it never felt repetitive.
Upstairs was a collection of weapons gifted to the monarchs from around the world and included a complete set of samurai armor and katanas that are the nicest I’ve seen outside of Japan. Highlights of the Tower, besides being in a nearly thousand year old castle keep, were a room-sized dragon made of weapons and an armory with rows upon rows of swords, pikes, muskets and pistols, enough to outfit sizeable force of soldiers.
Beside the Jewels there are several other self-guided Tower tours, but as the day went on I spent more time seeing less and less as the Tower became clogged with tourists and after six hours of the Tower I left. I’d seen most of it, but there’s still enough I haven’t seen to merit a second trip. I did miss the torture chamber after all.
Tower Hill Memorial
While transiting to or from the Tower from the Tower Hill underground station it’s a good idea to take a moment and visit the Tower Hill Memorial. It was built after World War I in memory of the thousands of merchant mariners who died during the war. Later it was expanded to include World War II. It was touching to see the rows of piled red poppy wreaths all along the memorial wall.
Imperial War Museum
Housed in an old military hospital, there’s a little something from every era here. The World War I gallery is the current highlight and it carefully and meticulously guides visitors through the Great War with a great chronological narrative, appropriate artifacts and engaging displays.
I came here a month after it’s reopening in 2014 for the centenary of World War I and I was surprised by the crowd. I visited on a work day during working hours a month after the reopening and yet the demand to see the World War I gallery was so great that I had to get a ticket and wait half an hour to view it. I wish museums in America or anywhere else where this popular.
I spent two hours in the World War I gallery alone and during that time learned a lot about Britain’s role in the war and some of the less highlighted aspects of it. World War I is usually reduced to trench warfare in France, but it was truly a world war. Here I saw stories of the war in Africa where thousands died just getting from point A to B to fight the Hun, about the men who made their stand in the Middle East and even how insurrection in Ireland played into the war. The view was entirely Anglo-centric and I loved seeing that perspective. It’s not right nor wrong but merely what is, and that’s what I love about seeing museums around the world and to gain that different perspective.
Beyond that gallery though, I was a bit disappointed. Most of the museum has an ‘artistic’ arrangement that is not easy to follow. Information is location on central stands in rooms so when looking at artifacts I’d have to pull myself away to the central information post to see what I was looking at.
Otherwise the Holocaust gallery is appropriately enlightening and gut-wrenching.
As a personal aside, one of the battleship guns out front belongs to a vessel my great-grandfather served on, so it’s a bit special to me, if only for that reason.
This is a small sampling of the military museums and places in London, a city with limitless potential for visiting.
From the Imperial War Museum