October Half Term: Witches and Wizards

Enjoy a spook-tacular day out this October Half Term at The Tank Museum!

This October Half Term, explore the museum with a magical mouse witch trail, get stuck in with spooky-themed crafts, and enjoy games and dress up activities around the museum.

Plus, mini tank fans can make use of the free indoor soft play, outdoor play area and interactives in every exhibition.

Key Details

Open daily 10am-5pm
Onsite restaurant, café, parking & free soft play
Free kids trails and dressing up
All indoors – great for a rainy day
Allow 4-5hrs for your visit

BOOK ONLINE AND SAVE 20%

Family Activities

There’s loads of family fun at The Tank Museum!

Explore the Museum with our magical mouse witch trail – and win a prize at the end!
Enjoy spooky fun at our Halloween colouring station
Create your very own mascot in one of our fun mascot-making sessions
Interactive games and dressing up in all of our exhibitions to keep children entertained and engaged.
Get creative in a ceramic painting session – book HERE.

What to See & Do

There’s tonnes to see and do at The Tank Museum, regardless of your age and knowledge of tanks!

The Museum is Dorset’s largest indoor attraction, with 300 tanks in 10 powerful exhibitions – all inside, perfect for a rainy day in October.
There are interactive games and dressing up in all of our exhibitions to keep children entertained and engaged.
Vehicle Conservation Centre open every day, timings vary.

Soft Play

Kids can let off steam in our free, tank shaped soft play area, situated in our Tamiya Hall.

The soft play is open from 10am to 4pm and is suitable for children aged between 3 and 11.
All children must be wearing socks and must be supervised.
The soft play is right beside our café, and has comfy chairs for parents to relax in.

October Half Term

TIME

ACTIVITY

LOCATION

Every day, all day

Outdoor Play Area

Climb on our Centurion & Mark II in the outdoor play area. Children must be supervised at all times.

Outside the Museum

Soft Play

Children must be supervised at all times.

Tamiya Hall

COBI Brick Building Competition

Calling all constructors! Using COBI bricks, build the scariest, spookiest tank you can imagine. Plus, you can enter your creation into our competition for the chance to win a COBI Brick Model – simply post your creation on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, and tag us!

Competition runs from – 24/10/2026 – 01/11/2026
Prize draw will be on – 03/11/2026

Tank Story Hall

Creepy Colouring Station

Grab your crayons and colour in a magical mouse, pumpkin or creepy-crawly spider.

Tamiya Hall

Magical Mouse Witch Trail

Tank mascot “Mouse Witch” tried to conjure a magical tank, but her spell went wrong and mixed up all the ingredients! Help her find all the tank parts around the Museum to complete the enchantment.

All exhibitions

27 October, 11:15-12:15, 13:00-14:00 & 14:00-15:00

Ceramic Painting

Bookings aren’t essential, but to guarantee a spot we recommend booking HERE.

Enjoy a relaxing and creative ceramic painting session with Sophie’s Ceramics.

Each session lasts one hour and costs £7 per item with all materials provided. Choose your piece, get painting, and make it your own. Your finished item can be taken away at the end of the day.

Briefing Room

Check the 'What's On' screen at the information point for details.

Dress-up – Soldier Style

Try on uniforms and discover how soldiers spend their leisure time off duty.

World War Two: War Stories

Mascot Making

Soldiers often carried lucky charms and mascots for good fortune. We have lots in the Museum, including “Mouse Witch”. This Halloween, you can create your own mascot!

Tanks for the Memories

Gruesome Grub

An army marches on its stomach… but so do the rats! Discover what soldiers ate on the battlefield and how they protected food from hungry rats lurking in camps and trenches.

Tank Story Hall

Commander Basil’s Spook-taculator Quiz

Challenge your family by taking Commander Basil’s Big Quiz – and win a prize!

Briefing Room

Every day, 13:30 - 15:00

Inside the Vehicle Conservation Centre

See the vehicles not on public display and find out how we maintain and restore them from the Vehicle Conservation Centre balcony.

Vehicle Conservation Centre

					Best trip of my life Genuinely amazing place, the tanks are awesome, your ticket lasts a full year, the staff are amazing. It's never too croweded either apart from school trips, otherwise you have all the room you need. Must go for anyone into tanks. 

The manager heard it was our last day in England so he let us into the conservation centre and into a tank for free. Will definitely go  again
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JAMIE B
16/10/26
					Exceeded Expectations-Wonderful Place We visited for my husband’s birthday, we knew we’d like it but had no idea just how brilliant this place is. Check in was friendly and the chap round at the start of the museum was really helpful and told us a talk would be starting soon so we went on that. The lady was excellent! I forget her name but she did the talk on the cut in half Centurian tank on October 1st in the morning around 11.30 if the museum is reading please check who was on shift and give her a massive thank you and well done, she was so interesting to listen to. We then wandered into the main section, so much to see! Honestly you will be pushed to do it in a day. We will absolutely head back using the year return feature of the ticket. Hats off to everyone involved.

The place was clean and had a good flow to lead you around from exhibit to exhibit, the stories are deeply moving, the one with the chap who took the compass from the wrecked tank and had a harrowing escape had us just stood there in quiet awe as did the display on the back wall of the WW2 area where veterans are interviewed in a film- deeply moving. We are all more blessed than we know to have had that generation go before us.  Highly recommend a visit here.
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850danettem
06/10/26
					So big and just amazing The tank Museum just wow it was far bigger than I expected. It is an all day event and I mean an all day realistically to  every story you need more than one day and some of these stories are very powerful. It flows very good. The layout is mind-boggling to how many tanks they can get into that place. It’s a bit like a Titus and must’ve been playing Tetris squeezing in all them tank it’s just amazing a great day even for the young ones. There is plenty there to keep to keep them entertained

Staff really friendly really knowledgeable



A short walk from the museum where they maintain the tanks that will just blow your mind how many tanks they have in that place



My advice a good pair of walking shoes so much to see and do



Good value on the Ticket as you can come back in 12 months to properly read everything you will need to come back



Great day here is something for everyone
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bigal2492
06/10/26
					Tanks Great, relaxing place no, perhaps a bit of a good scrap yard, but full of tanks
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Fearless39812837626
05/10/26
					Vast and impressive! What a huge museum! There is SO much to see here - every time we thought we were turning a corner to the exit, we'd find ourselves in another room full of tanks and more to see! This is a truly impressive place with a vast collection of tanks and all sorts of other war memorabilia. When you buy your ticket, it's valid for a year (excluding event days) which I think is a great idea, because there's so much to see I don't think you can really fully cover it in one visit. We'd definitely visit again.
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Megan P
04/10/26
					Living-History is Fun! Terrific collection of vehicles and their history. The organizers have gone to great lengths to provide realistic live-history exhibits to complement the large array of military vehicles. Bovington, Dorset: Home of the Tank. Highly recommended!
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C8215RWscottk
04/10/26
					I could not recommend this place enough! I could not recommend this place enough. It was one of my highlights of our trip to the UK. The museum was amazing but the people made it what it was. Incredibly helpful and friendly.
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Neil R
30/09/26
					A Must Do The Tank Museum at Bovington is an amazing place! I recently visited the museum on Tiger Day and and actually the day before. The information on vehicles is spot on, the ability to touch them is very much appreciated. All of the staff I encountered were genuine, helpful and truly invested in the museum and that is everyone from the volunteers to the chief of operations (Simon) who I had the pleasure of meeting. If you are able to arrange a visit on Tiger Day or Tank Fest, I recommend taking advantage of the Premium tickets. It is well worth the cost of the tickets which may seem steep to some but again, the parking, access and additional experience is more than worth it. I cannot wait to return, with my adult kids in tow to show them the tank life I enjoyed (and endured) in the 1980s. The museum is Top Tier across the board.
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Timucin W
29/09/26
					The day at the museum. We had great time at the tank museum. All is very impressive and some tanks are still up and running taking part in Tankfest shows. I’m not into tanks, but my brother is and thanks to him we went there. Nobody was disappointed. Everything is very well kept and is very interesting. This is apparently second largest tank museum on this planet. Has little restaurant, other coffee shop and very well stocked gifts shop. They are offering guided tours as well. Loads of information provided about tanks. I would highly recommend visiting there.
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TortillaTravels
29/09/26