St Ermin's Hotel in Westminster opened in 1899 and in the run up to WW2 became a meeting place for spies and officers to have meetings, swap information and conduct job interviews. When war broke out, a number of entire floors were commandeered by MI6 and SOE (Special Operations Executive) where the seeds for the SAS were sown. After the war, the hotel continued to be a favourite haunt of spies, probably most famously double agent Guy Burgess. Today, the hotel display a number of artefacts relating to their secret service past and my favourite is a silk scarf, printed with a secret code, the type once sown in to the clothes of airmen dropped in to occipied France. #londonwalkingtours #londonguide #walkingtour #tourguide #funfact #funfacts #trivia #london #hotel #londonhotel #sterminshotel #sas #secretservice #winstonchurchill #spy #spies #intelligence #mi6 #ww2 #espionage #sabotage #guyburgess #topsecret #soe #westminster