Battle of Britain Bunker
Sixty feet under Uxbridge, this operations room ran Fighter Command’s No. 11 Group—the London sector—during 1940. Here the Dowding System stitched radar plots, observers’ calls and radio control into a single decision loop that kept the Luftwaffe at bay. The restored room, with tote boards, coloured clocks and a vast plotting table, shows how information, not just aircraft, won the battle. Budget 90 minutes: surface museum first, then the guided descent.
Opening Hours
Admissions
What's not to miss inside?
Operations Room
The war’s nerve centre for southeast EnglandPlotters with rakes slid blocks across a giant map as controllers ‘scrambled’ squadrons by telephone and radio.
📍 Bunker level, guided tour only
Dowding System Explained
World-leading network warfare—1940 editionChain Home radar + Observer Corps + sector control = minutes of advantage turned into survival.
📍 Surface museum, timeline wall
Voices in the Headset
Stress you can hearReal transcripts of clipped commands and acknowledgements from controllers and pilots.
📍 Audio stations
Churchill’s Visit
15 September 1940, the turning point observedChurchill watched from the balcony as raids peaked; he left to declare the day decisive.
📍 Ops room gallery notes
Inspire your Friends
- Those coloured sectors on the big clock weren’t decorative—controllers used them to timestamp plots so they knew, at a glance, how ‘fresh’ each sighting was.
- WAAF plotters (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) provided much of the bunker’s workforce; the ‘rake’ jobs demanded spatial memory and split-second hearing.
- On ‘Battle of Britain Day’ (15 Sept 1940) Winston Churchill watched operations here; two days later he gave his ‘so many to so few’ speech in the Commons.
