Matt Flegal shares with us his opinion of Bovington Tank Museum and its collection in words and pictures.

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Thanks!

Darren congratulations!!!
I visited the Bovington Museum at last August and I love it. You described very well the trip from Waterloo Station to Woll. Unfortunately, I had only one day and I must return to London at same day. My advice is: If you want to visit the enormous collection of this Museum with calm, spend two day in Woll and don't forget more than one battery for camera.
About others military museums,if anyone visit Rio de Janeiro you must visit a small armour museum called Museu Conde de Linhares. In this museum you will find all tanks and vehicles used by Brazilian Army and some of Nazi stuffs captured in IIWW like Flak 88 mm. I recommend and I will try to do a location scouting of this Museum.

What a great museum that is,

I visisted it a few weeks ago and I was stunned by the collection. However, the Tiger I was gone. The official told us it was in the workshop to get prepped for a special tank day. Luckily they decided to give me and a few other people a chance to take a look in the workshop were they were restauring all their vehicles and we had a very nice chat with the man leading the restauration of the Tiger I, who gave us some detailed info about the origin of the Bovington vehicle, and the few remaining other ones in the world. It was a great day!

cheers,

Mat

Hi Matt,

I haven't been down since it got it's make over, but the two visits I had were excellent even then. TH Lawrence's cottage is not far away either.

I hope to get down for a couple of days next time, so much to see.

Cheers and glad you enjoyed the visit.

Al

Def on my "must do" modeling bucket list. Duxford last Fall was another one, and the musée des blindés in Saumur is the third.

To anyone coming any distance (e.g. from the U.S.), I would recommend timing your visit to a "Tankfest" weekend, where you will see numerous tanks of all ages, including the Tiger, in action. The ticket also includes entrance to the museum, and there are usually re-enactors and model stands as well. This year's is the 28th and 29th June.

Ah, what memories. I spent two happy years stationed at Bovington, in fact the hangars where we stored our Land Rovers were right behind the museum so it was very accessible for me. I guess Wool has changed a lot since then (1972) but I see from google maps that the Ship Inn still exists. I had lunch there one day shortly before I moved to the US in 2003

I just loved Bovington when i went there in december but I was also unlucky with the Tiger being away to shoot a new Brad Pitt movie. If someone should be interested in "odd" armour I could really recommend our national armour museum here in Sweden, called "Arsenalen". A pretty nice collection and they are right now restoring one of only two or three surviving German LKII tanks from WW1 to running condition and the aim is to have the first official, in public, drive at the "real" centenary, 2016

You guys making me so jealous! I never been there, may be one day I could make a trip...