"UK - primary military place to visit?" Topic

Visitors to the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland), what is your primary military place to visit?

Does that place reflect your primary wargame interest?

(A battlefield, building, collection, person, or museum)

EDIT Emphasis placed

Talk about asking impossible questions…….OK, I live there, but I don't know them all…..but I still visit places so…

Roman Wall for Roman fans, Sutton Hoo for Saxons, Duxford for aircraft, either HMS Warrior or Victory for naval, Bovington Tank Museum for tanks, Imperial War Museum London for general war, possibly Wales for castles(?), have to think about which cathedral for army standards,strangely no opinions about battlefields, but literally thousands of other places…..

sorry cap but thats pretty much unanswerable
bovo for tanks
cosford for planes
id still like to go to the IWM
and ived lived in Avon and the west mids, theres just far too much stuff.

Errr…what about…no but…although…AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGG!!!!!!

The first time I went to the UK I really wanted to see Culloden. It was great. I don't really have much interest in the museums. It would be battlefields or historic sites.
Generally they would be in areas that I was interested in wargaming.

Bovington tank museum for anything modern armour related

Me and the boy prefer duxford and bovington (there is tankfest this summer )
Imperial war museum has a lot of good stuff to read and is more informative than these first two.
Castles are everywhere, Edinburgh is great and still has a lot of ties and tradition .( my grandad was a Royal scot)
Hadrians wall while your up there?
Conway in wales is wonderful to visit I went as a young lad and remember how cool it was in a walled town .caernarfon castle is down the road from there along the coast .( I beleive there may be a military museum nearby)
Like many people before there are too many places to mention ,you just have to look for what your interested in.
I live in Colchester there are local barracks an underground bunker .Damaged buildings attacked during the ECW .A Norman Castle built on the foundations of a Roman fort.Lots of Roman ruins about caused by Time and a scornful queen .
There will be a beer festival in the castle this year ,how awesome is that?

I can say that where ever you go ask a local and there will be something nearby.

Royal armouries in Leeds worth a look. If you time it right there's jousting to watch.

HMS Belfast in London.
Fleet Air Arm museum in Yeovilton.

Trooping the Colour for Victorian drill & movement…

Steel Penguin had it spot on with;

"sorry cap but that'ss pretty much unanswerable
Bovington for tanks
Cosford for planes
I'd still like to go to the IWM
and lived lived in Avon and the west mids, theres just far too much stuff."

Tony

No mention of the National Army Museum? I thought the collection there had a lot.

If you're up near Inverness, Fort George. Fantastic post Culloden Vauban style fortress.

You should understand that another thing that makes this question unanswerable is that museums in the UK have been decentralized. Used to be THE place to see armour was the Tower. Now it has been remodeled, and although still has a great armour display, a lot of the collection went north to Leeds. Same thing with the Sutton Hoo collection in the British Museum, ect. The push has been to make great tourist sites around the country, not just in London.

That said, I still think the British Museum is my favorite place to visit on every trip to the City.

The Wargames Holiday Centre in Reading

wargameshc.co.uk

These are 54mm

If forced to pick one and only one, it would be the Imperial War Museum.

If allowed three, it would be IWM, Duxford and Bovington.

There are castles, prehistoric hill forts, roman bits, military installations, regimental museums, old tanks and aircraft in unlikely spots and stuff like that all around the country of course.

Duxford and yes it's one of my main wargames interests.

Whitby castle… History from Roman times to the first world war.

Tower of London for it's superb racks of pikes and other edged weapons on display as well as the jewels and the castle itself.

Dover.

Chatham for it's collection of vessels and the old dockyard.

Portsmouth, same as above.

Tintagel Castle, fantastic day out with great views. Your legs will hate you after.

The Welsh castles.

Carlisle with it's Roman beginnings to the Jacobites and one end of Hadrians wall just up the road.

Castle Menzies, a fantastic example of a Z castle.

Culloden, Bannockburn and Stirling Castle.

Edinburgh, an awful lot to see.

Berwick Upon Tweed.

Newcastle, walls end.

That would be my quick tour round the country.

Cabinet War Rooms, if you are into WWII

Others have covered most of the rest.

The Imperial War Museum is undergoing renovations (interestingly, it is in the old Bethlehem Hospital for the Insane, aka 'Bedlam') until June or July 2013, and is closed. But it was very nice.

I also liked the Army Museum in London, near the Pensioners's Hospital.

Hmm, what a question, it all depends what one is interested in, and there is so much to see?
The IWM by the way has less than 2% of its exhibits on show. I've always wondered if that is the norm for all "big" museums.
One choice for each country that I have visited (I live in England):-
Manorbier Castle, Wales link
British Museum, England
britishmuseum.org
The Castle Trail, Scotland
link

"Whitby castle… History from Roman times to the first world war."

There aint no bleedin castle at Whitby

There aint no bleedin castle at Whitby

Well there is a "castle" at Whitby:
link

but it sure ain't medieval!

Portsmouth Dockyard: HMS Victory, HMS Warrior, a Holland submarine, a 1950's submarine, the Mary Rose and the museum.

The only thing at Whitby is a rather rusty 13pdr down by the harbour. There is the abbey and lots of Goths of course.

There is however a very nice castle at Scarborough just down the coast, which may have been what the OP was thinking of. That also has a rather less rusty 13pdr on the harbour wall.

Okay I typed Whitby instead of Scarborough…

God knows why I was thinking of Whitby…

Whitby great place to buy amber, plus it has a 'gateway' of crossed whale ribs. And Dracula once lived there.

Thinking of Scarborough, alternate week-ends – possibly just in summer – puts on a fantastic model naval battle:

YouTube link

Yep, just in summer, but a must see – really spectacular.

I've always like Porchester Castle near Portsmouth in Hampshire.

It gives you everything from the Romans (a Saxon Shore fort) through it the Napoleonic War (POW camp) in one place:

link

You can take in the HM Dockyard discussed above since it is really close.

I like the Royal Armoury in Leeds, as well. Towton and Marston Moor are nearby.

If we are talking just one… Royal armouries
In Leeds, really good place, my ex-girlfriend
And l lost 7 hours walking around it, and no,
Thats not why she's my ex!
John

If you are plotting a visit, The Imperial war Museum London site is closed until July

iwm.org.uk/visits/iwm-london

For planes, Duxford is good but can be expensive (and there's little else in the area to see). However, the Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon, London is excellent, free and from there you can do other historical and military sites in London (just up the road in Hertfordshire is the DeHavilland Mosquito museum, for example).

Sorry Nick, I must disagree. Much as I love Hendon, Duxford is a FULL day out and is very reasonably priced at that (and under-16s are free): link

Not only are there four hangars of static aircraft, but there are also aircraft restorations in progress, the truly astonishing American Hall and memorial, the Land Warfare Hall (lots of tanks and if you get the right day of the week, they run tanks outside and give tank-rides), the Airborne Assault Museum and a load more besides. I'd also add that every single time I've been there, there has been at least one flying display by a WW2 fighter and sometimes more than that.

Duxford also isn't that far from Conningsby (home of the BBMF), the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre at East Kirkby (with a running Lancaster), College Hall at RAFC Cranwell (which does guided tours on appointment) and the Sector Fighter Control Centre Museum at RAF Digby (again, tours on appointment), Newark Air Museum and a few other, smaller museums and aviation heritage sites.

I like medieval and WW2 wargaming.

My top three places to visit (also good with family) are

IWM Duxford is very good for aircraft (nearly every important military aircraft) and also quite good for military vehicles.

Royal Armories in Leeds is very good for soldiers, weapons and armour from the Dark Ages to modern times. Part of the armour collection is at The Tower of London.

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is interesting with the HMS Victory, HMS Warrior and the Mary Rose.

In terms of battlefields Naseby has to be worth a look, Some very nice display boards courtesy of the Naseby Battlefield Trust. Marston Moor and Towton are still agricultural land but don't have the guide boards. Boswoth Field has now been shown not to be where the display centre is (IIRC). For Museums/displays The Commandarie (think I spelled that right) at Worcester is worth a swift visit too although not what I would choose if I could only see one thing.

If it were to be only one thing I might well go with the shuttleworth trust in Bedfordshire. Nice collection of Historic aircraft from the very early days of flight. Some real some repro but all worth seeing, and many of them are still flown on special event days.