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  • The Paddock Bunker - Neasden The British government decided after the first world war that should a similar war happen again, it would be prudent to have a second secure location for the most senior ministers to escape to and continue running a war. Why Neasden? This part of Neasden was home to a very secret Post Office research centre created in the late 1920s and early 1930s. This was where Tommy Flowers carried out the research that led to the design and construction of the first electronic computer, Colossus, at Bletchley Park. His computers played an essential part in cracking the most challenging of the German military codes. Winston Churchill's secret bunker was really secret throughout World War Two (1939-1945). There are War Rooms under Whitehall, where Churchill held cabinet meetings and slept but he also had another bunker, 40 ft below ground in sleepy Brook Road, Neasden, NW London. The bunker, codenamed Paddock, was an alternative to the Cabinet War Rooms at Whitehall, which would not have survived a direct hit. This bunker was deep enough to be completely bombproof. Paddock was meant to be Churchill's last refuge if the World War 2 Battle of Britain had been lost. It was designed to accommodate the entire war cabinet and 200 staff. It cost £250,000 to build the bunker in 1938 - that would be about £80 million now. Paddock was so secret, that Churchill only described it as "near Hampstead" in his memoirs. But he used it just once for a war cabinet meeting because he thought it was too far away from the city and he found it rather damp

  • said klempner69

  • 2009.05.08 at 11:07:13 PDT

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