Wight Military and Heritage Museum — Attraction in Newport

We love a day trip to the IOW, but had never visited the Wight Military Museum before, more fool us! What a gem of an attraction. Plenty of car parking with an eclectic mix of old buses and ‘William’ the Conqueror tank to greet you. Once inside, you are met by super-friendly volunteers and shown the toilets etc. Admission prices are great value considering the cost of the upkeep of such a wide and varied collection. After a quick scout around the gift shop and trying to avoid yet more temptation to spend - (there is a great looking tearoom next door) we were taking in the fantastic weapons on display when one of the volunteers very kindly came up and talked us through the collection with the promise of a hands-on opportunity later on, off we went on our way around. There is so much to see and read about with rousing and appropriate soundtrack playing in the background, at times it was a very emotional and evocative experience. After the same gentleman found us to say that his presentation was about to begin, we throughly enjoyed the opportunity to handle some of the small arms and rifles before continuing around. We then stepped outside at the rear of the building where another team led by an ex-REME regiment serviceman were about to start-up an Abbott armoured personnel carrier. Wow, what a treat and the gentleman kindly took timeout to talk us through the mechanics of this vehicle and answer all our questions. We were allowed to stay while they manoeuvred it around. Definitely another highlight. I would not hesitate to recommend you visit this attraction and support the men and women who have dedicated themselves to preserving the nation’s proud military heritage. It was truly an all immersive and totally inspiring experience and I salute the ethos of what the team do in running this tremendous asset to the Island’s tourist industry and educating everyone in the futility of war. Well done to everyone concerned and...

Random rubbish! As someone who visits many military museums across the world, this is the worst one ive ever visited. Point one is what is the theme of the museum? There are tanks, aircraft and all sorts of random home front bits. If you have a museum, why cant you make it topical? Thousands of men from the isle of white went to gallipoli as part of the isle of white rifles however there is no mention that I could see apart from a white board that had pernemant marker on it describing the somme, where are the stories of the regiment? The artifacts? All I sore was different vehicles all badly needing re painting all shuved in a room, I do not recommend this museum to anybody, especially kids or someone who wants to see something vagelly interesting because there is nothing for kids to do and the vehicles have little or no info about them, the museum is plastered with 'do not climb' which is annoying and the most anmoying thing about the whole museum is that the only interesting thing in there was the first war bits however the desplay which is only a few bits is shuved behind a truck, there is even medals that someone won during the great war in a corner without ribbons that cost peanuts and there is nothing about the man, please please please hire a museum curator to help design the museum better, please add more ww1 displays instead of things that no one is interested in, a waste...

Unfortunately I go down to the Isle of Wight every year to stay with my eldest niece, not only for a holiday, but to also carry out behind the scenes work in cataloging, repairing, and getting archive material and reference books ready for being available for research by visitors to what is continually being improved museum run by a charity that also helps disabled people with their many different needs, with me being a disabled ex-serviceman who served and was badly injured whilst in the RAF. Therefore I really shouldn't praise the normal staff and the museum which has now become the guardian of my extensive military weapons and equipment collection, and which will have a reference library of not only over 1,400 military books, instruction manuals, from my own collection, but also a similar amount of related DVDs. I don't get paid for my work, nor do I expect to be paid, but like those who volunteer, or are being helped to feel valued members of the community, it is the friendship and knowledge that my own work is considered as being a great help to the future of a very interesting...