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Location: National Army Museum, Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, United Kingdom. (51.486111°N 0.16°W).
Phone: +44 20 7881 6606
National Army Museum
The National Army Museum is the British Army's central museum. It is located in the Chelsea district of central London, England adjacent to the Royal Hospital Chelsea, the home of the "Chelsea Pensioners". The National Army Museum is open to the public every day of the year from 10.00am to 5.30pm, except on 24–26 December and 1 January. Admission is free. The museum is a non-departmental public body.
The National Army Museum relates the overall history of the British Army, British colonial, imperial and commonwealth forces and the British Indian Army as a whole from 1066 to the present and its effects on national and international history. However, the Museum's displays on the period from 1066 to 1642 are principally via interpretation rather than objects, since its collecting remit is principally from the English Civil War onwards. Though the National Army Museum does hold a small number of early objects (such as a bronze saker from the 1530s), acquisitions of pre-1642 military items for the national collection is usually by the Royal Armouries.
This is in contrast to other military museums in the United Kingdom such as Firepower – The Royal Artillery Museum, which relate the history of individual corps and regiments of the British Army. It also differs from the subject matter of the Imperial War Museum, another national museum in London, which has a wider remit of theme (war experiences of British civilians and military personnel from all three services) but a narrower remit of time (after 1914).
History of National Army Museum:
The National Army Museum was first conceived in the late 1950s, and owes its existence to the persistent hard work of Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer, who did most of the fundraising for it. It was established by Royal Charter in 1960, with the intention of collecting, preserving, and exhibiting objects and records relating to the Regular and Auxiliary forces of the British Army and of the Commonwealth, and to encourage research into their history and traditions. It was initially established in 1960 in temporary accommodation at the former No.1 Riding School at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
A new purpose-built building, designed in brutalist style by William Holford & Partners, was started in 1961 on a site which had previously formed part of the old infirmary of the Royal Hospital Chelsea. The new building was completed ten years later and opened by the Queen on 11 November 1971.
One director, Ian Robertson, initiated a programme to establish an outpost of the Museum in the garrison town of Catterick, North Yorkshire, to be known as National Army Museum North, on the model of Imperial War Museum's establishment of the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester. A large site was chosen near Marne Barracks, beside the A1, and in 2002 Simon Pierce of Austin-Smith:Lord was chosen as the new museum's architect. However, funding and planning issues later led to the cancellation of the plan in 2003. The National Army Museum instead underwent a major redevelopment of its gallery and corridor displays at Chelsea from 2006 onwards, establishing new displays in existing permanent display areas, converting the corridors from oil-painting displays to permanent-exhibition spaces, and producing new temporary and permanent display areas on the third floor. This redisplay concluded with the opening of the new permanent National Service gallery in October 2010, though a further phase of redevelopment followed from 2011 onwards.
