Battlefield History Tours Incorporating History and Heritage tours

Our main plan for today was to visit two (2) museums. We achieved our aim and also found a wonderful pub set on a hill above the Salisbury Plain with views across the plain.

A much more relaxed day for us all as we did not need to cover any great distances and our travel was through beautiful English countryside with its lovely villages and hamlets.

We stayed last night, the first of three, at a new hotel, The Grassmere House Hotel. The hotel staff were most helpful and we enjoyed our dinner and then the comfortable beds in good sized rooms. After breakfast we headed to our first museum, The Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton. An excellent museum with some real special surprises, a mock up aircraft carrier which looked and felt just like the real thing. Every year we visit the museum we see changes and all enhance the museum.

Following our visit we moved to our lunch appointment at the White Post Hotel at Rimpton. Lunch was spectacular with the Ploughman's Lunch and other similar selections being ordered by most. The pre-lunch drinks on the terrace overlooking the plain set the tone for the day. While having lunch at the White Post Pub we were entertained by a fly past of a Hurricane, which passed over the hotel on a couple of occasions, appropriate for such an esteemed tour.

We dragged ourselves away and headed to Middle Wallop to visit the Museum of Army Flying. This museum is a little different to most museums that we will visit on the Tour as it has exhibits other than the aeroplanes that the others have as their focus.

The Museum of Army Flying has an excellent display showing the history of the use of gliders and a film showing the use of 440 gliders in support of Montgomery's push across the Rhine. There are many types of gliders on show and stories of the campaigns that had the gliders at the forefront.

Then, back home to Salisbury for a deserved drink before dinner. Tomorrow is a mixed bag and we aim to be back by 1500 to enable visits to the Cathedral.

  

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