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Bovington Tank Museum

A Challenger 1 Proto type tank sits outside the door and was a bit of a distraction but the sliding door beckoned! To the left is a gift-shop followed by the front desk. Pay your £12.50 and up you go. Feel free to drop a bit more cash in the donation bin and decide where to start. I hung a left and went into the “Tank Story Exhibition”. This room is the equivalent of most complete tank museums; here it is the smaller display area. The first thing that jumped out at me is that this is by far the nicest tank museum you’ll probably ever visit in that it is clean, the tanks are dusted, it is very well lit, and the tanks are immaculate. The collection here is amazing; Challenger 2 prototype, Lanchester Mk II armored car, Crosslet armored car, Daimler Mk II armored car, FV601B, Kattenkraftrad, M3 medium tank, Char B1 bis, Little Willie prototype, Panzer II F, Panzer III L, Panther G, FT17, T-34/85, Matilda II, Churchill VIII, Cromwell IV, Cruiser Mk III, Leopard 1, Mark VIB, M4A2 Sherman DD, Sherman Firefly, Centurion Mk III, Whippet, Mk II Rhomboid with one sponson removed to see inside, T-62, M48, T-72, Chieftain, and several others. One thing that added some real poignancy were the small wooden crosses on the Churchill’s glacis commemorating soldiers fallen in the Middle East. This is a museum but it is also a center of the UK’s armored force training.