'Evening all, After hooning about the B roads of Exmoor on the Panzer yesterday I dropped in to have a look at the Cobbaton Combat Collection in Devon. http://www.cobbatoncombat.co.uk/ It is obviously a work of love by an enthusiast for the subject and suffers not at all by that. It is basically three big sheds crammed full of mainly WW2 kit. It is mostly labelled but sometimes not. If it were a 'proper' museum then I would be annoyed by that but as an eccentric collection it has a charm of its own and shouldn't really be compared with the latest in modern, interactive, touchy-feely museum presentation. Anyway, at £7 a pop to get in it seems quite good value compared to 'major' tourist destinations. Plus you can chat to the bloke on the door on how he is organising 170 plus vehicles to get to Normandy week after next. Some sort of anniversary bash on apparently. Here's a selection of photos taken using a little point and squirt digi cam I bought about 8 years ago. There's not a lot of room to frame the big toys so I sort of concentrated on the smaler toys that appealed to me. CS
Looks like a great day out CS, shame it is so far away from me. I know what you mean about the 'major attractions', it does seem they have lost the intimate touch that smaller collections still have.
Good stuff, CS. I still haven't been to Cobbaton, and I'm not entirely sure why. Looks like the Pitt Rivers of our world.
Centaur, an interesting story and fortunately saved by the good folks at Cobbaton. Kind regards, always, Jim.
I visited the place in mid 90s, at that time his landmark was a black M47 Patton and the owner told me that the collection was a hobby that got out of hand. Still it seems that he has expanded his collection substantially since my visit.