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Bovington Tank Museum

I would suspect that most armor modelers have a bucket list of museums that they hope to someday visit. I certainly do and have had the good fortune to visit several in the USA; the Patton Museum before most of the collection got shipped to Fort Benning, Aberdeen to see an impressive collection rusting away outside, and so forth. However, the Bovington Tank Museum has always been the big one for me and after several years of planning I was finally able to make it there back in March.

First off, getting there from London is pretty easy. Pay your 44 pounds roundtrip to take the train from Waterloo Station to Wool station and sit in a comfortable seat for 2 hours while looking at the English countryside and some cities along the way. One handy tip, in the UK and most of Europe, is that trains leave on time and arrive on time. If the ticket shows the train leaving at 8:58 AM it will be pulling out of the station at 8:59 AM. Don’t be late.

Wool station itself is in the small and pleasant town of Wool, strangely enough. Taxis are available at the station but I elected to walk to the museum to stretch my legs a bit and am glad I did. The forty minute walk is quite pretty, especially if you cut along the bike path and cross the river. The old sprawling farm house you’ll pass is worth the walk all by itself. In addition, the route could not be more straightforward and the signage is excellent so you’d have to work awfully hard to get lost.

As you get to the museum you pass the equestrian center, which seems quite appropriate based on the tank-cavalry connection. There is a weathered T-55 to your right and a shot up Matilda to your left and then you’ve hit the parking lot where the museum awaits!