Firepower The Royal Artillery Museum

heritagefrank

Firepower, The Royal Artillery Museum 25th January 2009

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Firepower is truly one of London's hidden gems of history. The Museum is in listed buildings within the former Royal Arsenal that has its origins as a Henry VIII dockyard. The Museum as an entity is the oldest military museum in the world but the current site was opened in 2001.

The museum was set up by the Royal Artillery to tell the story of the regiment and the 2 million men and women who have served in the regiment. The Museum, which is way bigger than you'd expect, is full (though well presented) of artillery hardware from Roman times to what the Army use today. The Museum is however full of human stories and perhaps the star exhibits are the actual guns (cannons) that Victoria Crosses are made from. Uniforms (male and female) and loads of personal items give the hardware a human scale. See a lock of Napoleon's hair and the Duke of Wellington's umbrella too!

It's easy to get to by road but the Thames Clipper means you can travel by river from the city centre while the new DLR link is one of the coolest of all ways to arrive and the station is 5 minutes away.

A great cafe (really excellent), lots for kids to see and do including trails, and gift shop means its got the lot. Always lots of special events on, monthly wargaming and the kids camouflage/birthday parties they put on are incredibly good value too.

The atmosphere of the Arsenal right by the river is hard to beat and the adjacent Greenwich Heritage Centre tells the story of the locals (100,000 at its peak) that made the big guns and ammunitions for the artillery.

A great heritage experience - don't follow the herd to Greenwich, go to Woolwich.