Sir Nicholas Hytner recommends The Cabinet War Room

Sir Nicholas Hytner, the artistic director of London's Royal National Theatre, wrote a poignant piece about the Cabinet War Rooms for City Secrets London.

Cabinet War Rooms

In a corner of Horse Guards Parade, opposite St. James's Park, you can walk through a small door surrounded by sandbags into the underground warren of rooms from which the British Government ran the war when Hitler was dropping bombs on London.

Nowhere is more evocative of the old world where the fortunes of war were tracked by coloured pins on faded maps. They're still there, the pins, stuck forever onto what was left of Europe when the lights were turned out on them for the last time, and the door was locked, three months after VE Day.

Thirty-five years later it was reopened to the public. Years that had seen the liquidation of the British Empire had left magically unscathed the rooms from which Churchill had fought to preserve it. The typing pool, the dormitories, the cabinet room, Churchill's own bedroom--everything breathes the tobacco--stained, down-at-heel heroism of our finest hour.

Sir Nicholas Robert Hytner is an English film and theatre producer and director. He has been the artistic director of London's Royal National Theatre since 2003.