Imperial War Museum

Visited 19th October 2006--------Entry free

Report by Shimmer

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I first came here with my school, many years ago, and I remember it being an impressive place, but none of the details. Wiggy and I have been planning to return for a while so we took advantage of a couple of days of annual leave and headed into London. The journey there is pretty simple, Liverpool St to Embankment, then on to Lambeth North and a short walk to the museum itself.

Imperial War Museum building, impressive but bit cramped at the top

As with many of the other large museums in London, the first thing that hits you is the building itself, a very impressive looking place. The huge former battleship cannons outside leave you with no doubt that you've come to the right place. After a brief security check and a chance to buy a brochure you enter via the main hall, shown below. This is the most impressive part of the museum with tanks and guns from both world wars set out across the floor and aircraft hung from the ceiling with worryingly thin supports.

I hope those ropes are checked regularly

There are so many floors to explore and sections to look through that even with a fairly casual browsing of the exhibits, there's too much to see in one day. It's therefore best to examine the floor plan and determine what areas are of most interest and visit those first.

Model wearing authentic Kamekaze outfit. Erm, yeah, well, maybe it was a spare Kamekaze outfit...Trench warfare is hell, and apparently, also quite smelly

Of most interest to me were the sections on the war in the far east and the War in the Trenches exhibit, which, with it's dimly lit visuals, eerie sounds and musty odours was genuinely disquietening (well if you managed to avoid walking through it when the gang of school kids weren't charging through shouting).

Selection of firearms from more modern times. Hopefully de-activated!

As far as I could see, nearly all the exhibits date from after the 1900s, making this one of the most modern museums in the capital. Although I would have been interested to see older exhibits, with the size of the museum as it is there wouldnt be any space to go back further in time, as it is we were there for a good few hours and didn't get round to seeing the highest two floors. We intend to return at some time in the future to see what's up there!