Royal Army Chaplains' Museum
military museum in Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom

The Royal Army Chaplains' Museum (formerly the Museum of Army Chaplaincy) at Shrivenham, England, tells the story of British Army chaplaincy from earliest times to the present day, with the help of archive material and historical relics from several centuries.
Collection
Its collection is dedicated to the work of Army Chaplains throughout history in peacetime, under fire, and in captivity. The museum archives also hold material relating to the department and its history, including information on the four chaplains who have been awarded the Victoria Cross. There is a linked charity, The Museum Of The Royal Army Chaplains' Department, which was first registered in 1979.
The museum's collections include the remaining records of the Royal Army Temperance Association and the records of the Churches' Work for Women in the Forces.
History
The museum was housed in Bagshot Park, Surrey, until 2001 when it was rehoused in a converted stable block at Amport House in Hampshire. Amport House was the home of the Royal Army Chaplains' Department (and the joint service Armed Forces Chaplaincy Centre) until 2020, when the property was sold by the Ministry of Defence.
The new energy-efficient building for the museum at the Defence Academy, Shrivenham, Oxfordshire was designed by Hewitt Studios of Bath, and opened by the Countess of Wessex on 17 May 2022.
The public source identifies “Royal Army Chaplains' Museum” as military museum in Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Royal, Army and Chaplains'.
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The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6940753. Authority coordinates are 51.604, -1.645. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1979, 2001, 2020 and 2022.
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This entry incorporates text from “Royal Army Chaplains' Museum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.