During our French excursion we had stayed in Folkstone. On our Thursday bus trip back to London we stopped at the Shoreham Aircraft Museum, in Sevenoaks an hours drive southeast of London.
This is a lovely little museum, with a charming garden…
…and a tea room full of yummy things.
The museum surprises, as it is much bigger on the inside than on the outside! You first come to a well-stocked museum shop. In the corner is a nose section of a Ju 88…
…and typical for the museum you will find a lot of interesting facts about it…
…as well as a model of it with equipment and staff in an interesting diorama.
Entering further sections you find all kinds of items, mostly relating to the second world war.
A lot of what you find are remains of shot-down aircraft, things brought back from below the surface in the fields around the museum.
You typically find a few objects from a certain aircraft but also a story related to it. 
Above is a row of original photographs that has been given to the museum and…
…with the help of those photos this fantastic model and diorama has been created.
Here is a piece of metal from the nose of a crashed Me 110. There is a model to show the aircraft with that special painting. You can also read a fascinating story how this particular Me110 crashed after a mid-air collision with a Spitfire. This story is told through quotes from British as well as German aviators involved in this very battle. This is the way to set up a museum!
On a wall I found these portraits. They once hang on the walls of “The White Hart”, a pub in Brasted, not far from the museum and popular among pilots flying from Biggin Hill.
Above is what was originally a black-out screen in front of the bar doors of The White Hart pub. In 1942 pilots started signing the screen and today you can find famous names here, like Neville Duke, J.E. Johnson, Brian Kingcome, Sailor Malan, Geoffrey Page and many more.
This museum is called the “Best kept secret in the Darent Valley”. Maybe difficult to find, but not to be missed!
