Paddock (war rooms)
alternative Cabinet War Room bunker for Winston Churchill
Paddock is the codeword for an alternative Cabinet War Room bunker for Winston Churchill's World War II government, located at 109 Brook Road, Dollis Hill, northwest London, NW2 7DZ; under a corner of the Post Office Research Station site.
History
The name derives from the nearby Paddock Road NW2, in turn named after a nineteenth-century stud farm, the Willesden Paddocks, situated nearby.
The bomb proof bunker was constructed 40 feet (12 metres) underground from reinforced concrete in total secrecy in 1939, but only rarely used during the war, with only two meetings of the War Cabinet being held there. It comprises some thirty-seven rooms on three floors. The facility included offices for the prime minister and Cabinet, but no living accommodation. Neville's Court, a nearby civilian block of apartments without strengthening, was to be used for this purpose.
It was taken out of use in 1944. It is semi-derelict, with original equipment abandoned and rusted, and a certain amount of water ingress which is kept at bay by an electric extraction pump.
Paddock was used after World War II by the General Post Office (GPO) for research and development and by the Post Office Research Laboratories Sports and Social Club. Paddock lay unused from when the Post Office moved to Martlesham Heath (Suffolk) and vacated the site in 1976, until Sovereign purchased the site (including Paddock) in 1997.
The public source identifies “Paddock (war rooms)” as alternative Cabinet War Room bunker for Winston Churchill. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Paddock, rooms and alternative.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7123359. The first chronological checks are 1939, 1944, 1976 and 1997.
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This entry incorporates text from “Paddock (war rooms)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.