*HERITAGE OPEN DAYS 2025*
The oldest surviving aircraft hangars in Europe now house part of the Royal Artillery Museum's amazing collection.
Our guided tours will take you behind the scenes at our Wood Road stores where you can explore:
- Unique and fascinating artefacts from our small objects store;
- Our incredible collection of field guns from the seventeenth century to the Second World War
- The latest projects in our conservation workshop;
- The story of the historic buildings that now house our collection.
The Wood Road hangars are Listed Grade 2*, and were built in 1910. That year, pilots flying from these sheds took part in a major military exercise that finally convinced the Army there might be a use for aircraft in war. Larkhill became Britain's first military airfield, but was only operational until 1914, and the sheds are now almost all that remains of this key moment in aviation history. Until last year, the sheds stored surplus furniture for the nearby Army camp but they have now been made available for use by the Royal Artillery Museum, providing office, workshop and storage space.
The Royal Artillery Museum’s collection was established in 1778 for training purposes, and is one of the oldest and most significant of all military collections. It opened to the public in 1820 at the Rotunda on Woolwich Common, moving to the nearby Firepower museum in 2001. Firepower closed in 2016, pending the creation of a new museum near Larkhill, the modern home of the Royal Artillery. That project is ongoing, and for the time being most of the collection remains in various storage locations.
This event is wheelchair accessible - please see the FAQs below for more detail.
