Saturday 17 March 2012

A little bit of history

Living in London means there is an incredible choice of museums, galleries and other attractions to see.

Crossed another off the list today - the small but interesting Household Cavalry museum on Horse Guards Parade.

Much of the museum was detailing the odd blend of ceremonial and active combat duties that the Household Cavalry perform, as well as the daily duties of the Regiment. Apparently on
Ceremonial duties they spend 10 hours cleaning and polishing both their and their horse's kit each day. A really nice touch was passing through part of the stables, most of which is still in use. So you could see some of the horses and squaddies going about their daily business.

Plenty of relics on show too: their Squadron Standard (you can see the Peninsula and Waterloo battle honours in this snap) for the Napoleonic enthusiast there was also a copy(!) of the French Eagle of the 105th that they captured at Waterloo, Uxbridge's false leg after he lost his at Waterloo and plenty of original sabres, helmets and kit. Smaller displays touched on duties quelling the Jacobite rebellion, in South Africa and changes in warfare into the 20th Century, World Wars and present day.

All in all a great little museum at a fair price so well worth a trip.

4 comments:

  1. Hmm? That's one I've not visited!! Thanks for the heads up!

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  2. I think it's quite recently opened, might be why Ray.

    It is a small museum, only really worth a trip if you're doing other stuff in the area. Plenty of choice there though! We were actually meaning to check out the Churchill War Rooms but there was a queue and it was raining so we left it and ended up at the Household Cavalry Museum.

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  3. I'd drop in if I was in the area, nice one Phyllion for the heads up.....

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  4. Cheers , that is one fot the upcoming trip to "the smoke"

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