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57-520: A number of military citadels are known to have been constructed underground in central London, dating mostly from the Second World War and the Cold War . Unlike traditional above-ground citadels, these sites are primarily secure centres for defence coordination. A large network of tunnels exists below London for a variety of communications, civil defence and military purposes; however, it

114-524: A "vast monstrosity which weighs upon the Horse Guards Parade". In 1955, a question was asked in the House of Commons about mitigating its harsh appearance. The Minister of Works , Nigel Birch , describing it as "a hideous building", announced that the heavy gun positions were to be removed and that planting Virginia creeper (some sources identify the plants as Boston ivy ) would help to mask

171-603: A bomb-proof operations centre for the Admiralty , with foundations 30 ft (9.1 m) deep and a 20-foot (6.1 m) thick concrete roof. It is also linked by tunnels to government buildings in Whitehall. Its brutal functionality speaks of a very practical purpose; in the event of a German invasion, it was intended that the building would become a fortress, with loopholed firing positions provided to fend off attackers. Sir Winston Churchill described it in his memoirs as

228-662: A centralised authority. Citadels in Indus Valley were almost 12 meters tall. The purpose of these structures, however, remains debated. Though the structures found in the ruins of Mohenjo-daro were walled, it is far from clear that these structures were defensive against enemy attacks. Rather, they may have been built to divert flood waters. Several settlements in Anatolia , including the Assyrian city of Kaneš in modern-day Kültepe , featured citadels. Kaneš' citadel contained

285-694: A city, but with the citadel still held by the former rulers, could by no means regard their tenure of power as secure. One such incident played an important part in the history of the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire . The Hellenistic garrison of Jerusalem and local supporters of the Seleucids held out for many years in the Acra citadel, making Maccabean rule in the rest of Jerusalem precarious. When finally gaining possession of

342-633: A conduit between the Cabinet Office and the MOD Main Building, with Downing Street access being added during Pindar's construction. The tunnel can be used by government ministers to enter Pindar without risking the press attention, and subsequent damage to national morale, that would ensue if the bunker was openly entered and, as was the case when the bunker was used for meetings on the 1999 NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia , without

399-412: A decorative architectural feature with Christian symbolism . A stepped embrasure was often utilised on pillbox bunkers of the 20th century. This allowed for a relatively wide field of fire compared to a traditional embrasure while also minimising the shot trap result created by the sloped opening. A series of perpendicular "steps" that tapered to the gun port ensured that any incoming fire that struck

456-437: A distinction was made between embrasures being used for cannons , and loopholes being used for musketry . In both cases, the opening was normally made wider on the inside of the wall than the outside. The outside was made as narrow as possible (slightly wider than the muzzle of the weapon intended to use it) so as to afford the most difficult possible shot to attackers firing back, but the inside had to be wider in order to enable

513-401: A gun mounted in the hull. These recesses were also termed embrasures and were intended to allow a wider arc of fire than a standard broadside arrangement would otherwise permit. Central-battery ironclads like HMS  Hercules featured such embrasures for fore and aft fire from the amidships battery's end guns. Later ironclads like HMS  Alexandra featured embrasures which were 'open to

570-399: A palm's breadth wide at the outer surface of the walls. Behind each of these and inside the walls were stationed archers with rows of so-called "scorpions" , a small catapult which discharged iron darts, and by shooting through these embrasures they put many of the marines out of action." However, the invention was later forgotten until reintroduced in the 12th century. By the 19th century,

627-599: A refuge, and a stronghold in peril, as well as containing military and food supplies, the shrine of the god and a royal palace . The most well known is the Acropolis of Athens , but nearly every Greek city-state had one – the Acrocorinth is famed as a particularly strong fortress. In a much later period, when Greece was ruled by the Latin Empire , the same strong points were used by the new feudal rulers for much

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684-550: A staff of up to 528 people, with facilities including a canteen, hospital, shooting range and dormitories. The centrepiece of the War Rooms is the Cabinet Room itself, where Churchill's War Cabinet met. The Map Room is adjacent, from where the course of the war was directed. It is still in much the same condition as when it was abandoned, with the original maps still on the walls and telephones and other original artefacts on

741-406: A wide field was preferred. Another variation of the embrasure featured both horizontal and vertical slits arranged in the form of a cross, and was called a crosslet loop or an arbalestina since it was principally intended for arbalestiers (crossbowmen). In the 16th and 17th centuries, after the crossbow had become obsolete as a military weapon, crosslet loopholes were still sometimes created as

798-399: Is described as a hole in a parapet through which cannons are laid to fire into the moat or field. The invention of the arrowslit is attributed to Archimedes during the siege of Syracuse in 214–212 BCE : From Polybius 's (c. 200–118 BC) The Histories (Book VIII, Ch. 5): " Archimedes had had the walls pierced with large numbers of loopholes at the height of a man, which were about

855-482: Is gradually abandoned because of its imprecision, in favour of those more precise of archer, crossbowman, gunner archer. The splay of the wall on the inside provides room for defending soldiers and their equipment, allowing them to get as close to the wall-face and to the arrowslit itself as possible. Examples of deep embrasures with arrowslits are to be seen at Aigues-Mortes and Château de Coucy , both in France. With

912-517: Is named after the ancient Greek poet Pindar whose house was the only one left standing in Thebes following the city's destruction in 335 BC. The Admiralty Citadel, London's most visible military citadel, is located just behind the Admiralty building on Horse Guards Parade . It was constructed in 1939 by the Ministry of Works with the architect W. A. Forsyth as a consultant. It was designed as

969-596: Is still used today by the Ministry of Defence . The only central London citadel currently open to the public is the Cabinet War Rooms , located in Horse Guards Road in the basement of what is now HM Treasury . This was not a purpose-built citadel but was instead a reinforced adaptation of an existing basement built many years before. The War Rooms were constructed in 1938 and were regularly used by Winston Churchill during World War II . However,

1026-480: Is the strongest part of the system, sometimes well inside the outer walls and bastions, but often forming part of the outer wall for the sake of economy. It is positioned to be the last line of defence, should the enemy breach the other components of the fortification system. Some of the oldest known structures which have served as citadels were built by the Indus Valley civilisation , where citadels represented

1083-626: Is unclear how these tunnels, and the various facilities linked to them, fit together, if at all. Even the number and nature of these facilities is unclear; only a few have been officially admitted to. The most important military citadel in central London is Pindar , or the Defence Crisis Management Centre. The bunker is located underneath the Ministry of Defence (MOD) Main Building in Whitehall , five floors below

1140-785: The Parc de la Ciutadella . A similar example is the Citadella in Budapest , Hungary. The attack on the Bastille in the French Revolution – though afterwards remembered mainly for the release of the handful of prisoners incarcerated there – was to considerable degree motivated by the structure's being a Royal citadel in the midst of revolutionary Paris. Similarly, after Garibaldi 's overthrow of Bourbon rule in Palermo , during

1197-721: The Spanish Civil War , in which the Nationalists held out against a much larger Republican force for two months until relieved, shows that in some cases a citadel can be effective even in modern warfare; a similar case is the Battle of Huế during the Vietnam War , where a North Vietnamese Army division held the citadel of Huế for 26 days against roughly their own numbers of much better-equipped US and South Vietnamese troops. The Citadelle of Québec (the construction

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1254-521: The 1860 Unification of Italy , Palermo's Castellamare Citadel – a symbol of the hated and oppressive former rule – was ceremoniously demolished. Following Belgium gaining its independence in 1830, a Dutch garrison under General David Hendrik Chassé held out in Antwerp Citadel between 1830 and 1832, while the city had already become part of independent Belgium. The Siege of the Alcázar in

1311-578: The Cabinet War Rooms were vulnerable to a direct hit and were abandoned not long after the war. The Cabinet War Rooms were a secret to all civilians until their opening to the public in 1984. They are now a popular tourist attraction maintained by the Imperial War Museum . The section of the War Rooms open to the public is in fact only a portion of a much larger facility. They originally covered three acres (1.2 hectares) and housed

1368-460: The Environment ), the old Cabinet War Rooms, and various telephone exchanges, and created a map of both this network and the deep level cable network based on his investigation. Those access shafts that could be readily entered by unauthorised individuals were promptly sealed up following the publication of Campbell's article. Citadel In a fortification with bastions , the citadel

1425-474: The MOD Main Building collapse on top of it, but did not state the details of these. Although Pindar is not open to the public, it has had some public exposure. Between September 2006 and April 2007, the British photographer David Moore carried out an extensive photographic survey of an underground facility that was widely believed (and strongly hinted) to be Pindar, with Moore stating in later years that Pindar

1482-570: The boundaries of a country. These modern citadels are built to protect the command centre from heavy attacks, such as aerial or nuclear bombardment. The military citadels under London in the UK, including the massive underground complex Pindar beneath the Ministry of Defence , are examples, as is the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker in the US. On armoured warships, the heavily armoured section of

1539-474: The building's previously existing South Citadel. Construction took ten years and cost £126.3 million. Pindar became operational in 1992, two years before construction was complete. Computer equipment was much more expensive to install than originally estimated as there was very little physical access to the site. Pindar can house a maximum of 400 personnel and provides protection against conventional bombing, sabotage, biological and chemical attack, flooding, and

1596-656: The city had fallen. For example, in the 1543 Siege of Nice the Ottoman forces led by Barbarossa conquered and pillaged the town and took many captives, but the citadel held out. In the Philippines , the Ivatan people of the northern islands of Batanes often built fortifications to protect themselves during times of war. They built their so-called idjangs on hills and elevated areas. These fortifications were likened to European castles because of their purpose. Usually,

1653-454: The city's palace, temples, and official buildings. The citadel of the Greek city of Mycenae was built atop a highly-defensible rectangular hill and was later surrounded by walls in order to increase its defensive capabilities. In Ancient Greece , the Acropolis , which literally means "high city", placed on a commanding eminence, was important in the life of the people, serving as a lookout,

1710-555: The concrete walls. In the same debate, a suggestion by MP John Tilney that a variety of plants be used was rejected by the minister on the grounds that it would "make it like an old-world tea garden". It became a Grade II listed building in December 1987. In 1992 the Admiralty communications centre was established here as the stone frigate HMS St Vincent , which became MARCOMM COMCEN (St Vincent) in 1998. The Admiralty Citadel

1767-626: The desks. Churchill slept in a small bedroom nearby. There is a small telephone room (disguised as a toilet) down the corridor that provided a direct line to the White House in Washington DC , via a special scrambler in an annexe basement of Selfridges department store in Oxford Street . An standby facility known as " Paddock " was also built but was only used for two War Cabinet meetings, and then only on an exercise basis, and

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1824-467: The effects of blast, radiation, and the electromagnetic pulse from "all but a direct hit or very near miss" by nuclear weapons. Pindar has two floors; the lower floor contains the Ministry of Defence's Joint Operations Centre, and the upper floor consists of: Pindar is connected to Downing Street and the Cabinet Office by a tunnel under Whitehall; the tunnel predated the bunker and was already used as

1881-498: The establishment of a bay . This term designates the internal part of this space, relative to the closing device, door or window. In fortification this refers to the outward splay of a window or of an arrowslit on the inside. In ancient and medieval military engineering , embrasures were constructed in towers and walls. A loophole , arrow loop or arrowslit passes through a solid wall, and thus forms an embrasure of shooting, allowing archer or gunner weapons to be fired out from

1938-405: The fortification while the firer remains under cover. This type of opening was flared inward - that is: the opening was very narrow on the outside, but wide on the inside, so that archers had free space of movement and aiming, while exterior attackers had as much difficulty as possible to reach them. There are embrasures especially in fortified castles and bunkers . The generic term of loophole

1995-473: The introduction of firearms , the term embrasure designated more specifically the opening made in a fortified structure to allow the firing of these weapons. In modern architecture, embrasures are incorporated during construction because they are intended to receive a door or a window. These are not openings made after construction. The term embrasure ( / ɪ m ˈ b r eɪ ʒ ər / ) comes from French ( French pronunciation: [ɑ̃bʁazyʁ] ), and

2052-498: The inward-facing surface of a step would be stopped or deflected laterally by the outward-facing surface of the step and not funnelled inward toward the gunner. In the 19th century, each step was known as a 'redent', based on Old French and Latin for 'double notching' or 'like the teeth of a saw'. On warships of the late 1860s and onwards to the First World War, the sides of a ship's hull might be recessed in locations near to

2109-512: The major service buildings either side of Whitehall. The Whitehall tunnels appear to have been extended in the early 1950s. Some official documents refer to a Scheme 3245: this is the only numbered tunnel scheme that has never been officially revealed or located by researchers. Files in the National Archives which may relate to this have been closed for 75 years and will not be opened until the 2020s. The excavation work for Scheme 3245

2166-448: The most important government departments, civil and military, to ensure the command and control of the war could continue despite heavy bombing of London. At the northern end, a tunnel connects to a shaft up to the former Trafalgar Square tube station (now merged with Charing Cross station), and to the BT deep level cable tunnels which were built under much of London during the Cold War . At

2223-437: The only entrance to the castles would be via a rope ladder that would only be lowered for the villagers and could be kept away when invaders arrived. In times of war, the citadel in many cases afforded retreat to the people living in the areas around the town. However, citadels were often used also to protect a garrison or political power from the inhabitants of the town where it was located, being designed to ensure loyalty from

2280-704: The place, the Maccabeans pointedly destroyed and razed the Acra, though they constructed another citadel for their own use in a different part of Jerusalem. At various periods, and particularly during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance , the citadel – having its own fortifications, independent of the city walls – was the last defence of a besieged army, often held after the town had been conquered. Locals and defending armies have often held out citadels long after

2337-595: The public network. In the 1980s it housed Horseferry Tandem which provided a unified communications system for all government departments as well as the Palace of Westminster. Access to the tunnel is gained via an 8 ft (2.4 m) lateral tunnel and a lift shaft in the nearby Whitehall telephone exchange in Craig's Court . A further entrance is via the deep level portion of the Admiralty. Spur tunnels, 5 ft (1.5 m) in diameter, were built to provide protected cable routes to

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2394-480: The risk of encountering hostile demonstrations. When answering written questions about Pindar, which included a question on the extent of lift and staircase access to the bunker and on whether there was any connection to transport systems, then-Armed Forces Minister Jeremy Hanley would say only that there were "sufficient means of access and egress" and denied that the bunker was connected to any transport system; he also said that there were means of leaving Pindar should

2451-747: The same purpose. In the first millennium BC, the Castro culture emerged in northwestern Portugal and Spain in the region extending from the Douro river up to the Minho , but soon expanding north along the coast, and east following the river valleys. It was an autochthonous evolution of Atlantic Bronze Age communities. In 2008, the origins of the Celts were attributed to this period by John T. Koch and supported by Barry Cunliffe . The Ave River Valley in Portugal

2508-436: The ship that protects the ammunition and machinery spaces is called the armoured citadel . A modern naval interpretation refers to the heaviest protected part of the hull as "the vitals", and the citadel is the semi-armoured freeboard above the vitals. Generally, Anglo-American and German languages follow this while Russian sources/language refer to "the vitals" as цитадель "citadel". Likewise, Russian literature often refers to

2565-631: The southern end, an 8 ft (2.4 m) diameter extension (Scheme 2845A) connects to a shaft under Court 6 of the Treasury Building: this provided the protected route from the Cabinet War Room. This was known as Y-Whitehall. The 8 ft (2.4 m) tunnel was further extended (Scheme 2845B) to the Marsham Street Rotundas . This extension housed the 'Federal' telephone exchange which had a dialling code of 333 from

2622-525: The town as well as on the sea approaches. Barcelona had a great citadel built in 1714 to intimidate the Catalans against repeating their mid-17th- and early-18th-century rebellions against the Spanish central government. In the 19th century, when the political climate had liberalized enough to permit it, the people of Barcelona had the citadel torn down, and replaced it with the city's main central park,

2679-609: The town that they defended. This was used, for example, during the Dutch Wars of 1664–1667, King Charles II of England constructed a Royal Citadel at Plymouth , an important channel port which needed to be defended from a possible naval attack. However, due to Plymouth's support for the Parliamentarians , in the then-recent English Civil War , the Plymouth Citadel was so designed that its guns could fire on

2736-654: The tunnel network and described his exploration in the 19-26 December 1980 issue of the New Statesman . He found more than thirty access shafts for the network as well as entrances to Q-Whitehall (below Trafalgar Square ), various government department buildings (including Downing Street, the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Defence, the Old War Office , the Admiralty , the Treasury , and the Department of

2793-403: The turret of a tank as the 'tower'. The safe room on a ship is also called a citadel. Embrasure An embrasure (or crenel or crenelle ; sometimes called gunhole in the domain of gunpowder-era architecture) is the opening in a battlement between two raised solid portions ( merlons ). Alternatively, an embrasure can be a space hollowed out throughout the thickness of a wall by

2850-405: The weapon (and its firer or crew) must bodily move from side to side to pivot around the muzzle, which is effectively fixed by the width of the opening. A horizontal loophole, on the other hand, facilitates quick sweeping across the arc in front, but makes large adjustments in elevation very difficult. These were usually used in circumstances where the range was very restricted or where rapid cover of

2907-427: The weapon to be swivelled around so as to aim over a reasonably large arc. A distinction was made between horizontal and vertical embrasures or loopholes, depending on the orientation of the opening formed in the outside wall. A vertical loophole—which was much more common—allows the weapon to be easily raised and lowered in elevation to cover a variety of ranges easily. To sweep from side to side, however,

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2964-523: Was abandoned in 1944. Q-Whitehall is the name given to a communications facility under Whitehall. The facility was built in a 12 ft (3.7 m) diameter tunnel during World War II, and extends under Whitehall. A similar facility was constructed in a tunnel that ran parallel to the Aldwych branch of the Piccadilly Line and was known as Trunks Kingsway ( Kingsway Telephone Exchange ). The project

3021-422: Was indeed the facility depicted in the photographs. The photographs, which were published as The Last Things in 2008 as well as being exhibited in 2008 and in 2009, show that the facility is stocked with items ranging from CBRN equipment to personal hygiene products. It has bunks for up to 100 military officers, politicians and civilians as well as communication facilities, a medical centre, and maps. The bunker

3078-482: Was known as 'Post Office scheme 2845'. A detailed description, with photographs, was published just after the war in the January 1946 edition of The Post Office Electrical Engineers' Journal . Sites equipped with unusual amounts of GPO/BT telecommunications plant are given a BT site engineering code . This site's code was L/QWHI. The site provided protected accommodation for the lines and terminal equipment serving

3135-552: Was nearly exposed when Prudential Assurance sued the General Post Office in 1952 for damage to their Staple Inn premises; Prudential's lawyers and experts visited the tunnels and received copies of the technical drawings, but secrecy around the excavation was otherwise maintained. Two years after the Prudential lawsuit, a D-Notice was issued for the tunnels. The journalist Duncan Campbell managed to get into

3192-657: Was started in 1673 and completed in 1820) still survives as the largest citadel still in official military operation in North America . It is home to the Royal 22nd Regiment of the Canadian Army and forms part of the Ramparts of Quebec City dating back to 1620s. Since the mid 20th century, citadels have commonly enclosed military command and control centres, rather than cities or strategic points of defence on

3249-582: Was the core region of this culture, with a large number of small settlements (the castros ), but also settlements known as citadels or oppida by the Roman conquerors. These had several rings of walls and the Roman conquest of the citadels of Abobriga, Lambriaca and Cinania around 138 BC was possible only by prolonged siege . Ruins of notable citadels still exist, and are known by archaeologists as Citânia de Briteiros , Citânia de Sanfins , Cividade de Terroso and Cividade de Bagunte . Rebels who took power in

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