“Everywhere, where right and glory lead.”
Motto of the Royal Engineers
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that the closer you live to something, the longer it takes you to get round to visiting it.
I have lived in Gillingham, home of the Royal Engineers Museum, for 17 years.
I finally managed to get round to visiting it in April 2024, an embarrassing 16 years after I first arrived.
Last year, I stumbled across a social media post about ‘Build, Demolish, Defuse’ weekend at the Royal Engineers Museum. I’d never heard of this event before, but it sounded interesting, so The Man of Kent and I decided to pop down and see what it was all about. It was a glorious day weather-wise, so we walked there via the Great Lines.
“What the hell was that?!” I exclaimed in a ladylike manner as we reached the bottom of the Great Lines Heritage Park. We had just heard a shot so loud it sounded like it was right in front of us. Another shot rang out shortly after. It couldn’t be coming from the Royal Engineers Museum, surely?

As it turned out, yes, it could. We arrived at the museum just in time to see a soldier firing a musket like they do in Sharpe. The gun sounded loud on the Great Lines, but up close the noise was deafening; my ears were ringing. Brilliant to see one being fired in real life though.
What we hadn’t appreciated then, is that the Royal Engineers Museum is VAST. We had decided to toddle down for the afternoon, but soon realised that was a major tactical error – there’s so much to see! And so much to do on Build, Demolish, Defuse weekend. One afternoon was not going to be enough time. Seriously poor planning and reconnaissance on our part.
This time, with the benefit of recon and intel from last year, we came better prepared and armed with a plan of attack. Today’s blog is a debriefing of our trip.
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