Telephone

This telephone was used at the Kingsway Exchange. Kingsway was built in 1942 as a bomb shelter, but was taken over for wartime operations by MI6 (the Secret Intelligence Service). After the war it was converted into a trunk telephone exchange by the General Post Office.

Kingsway continued to be used for clandestine purposes with the Cold War hotline between the White House and the Kremlin being connected through it. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis the facility was placed in 'lock down' and staff lived in it 24 hours a day. In the 1980s the government used part of the structure as a back up for its PINDAR nuclear bunker located beneath the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall.