This was my first visit, The monuments were brilliant and so many of them to see, I went mid week and it was very peaceful in some beautiful grounds to walk around..There is so much to see and many more visits for me will definitely be on the cards.
Finished my day with a visit to the shop and cafe...Its also worth a mention that the staff were very friendly...Its a place i will certainly visit again.

Lovely calm place to visit. Staff really friendly and helpful. Many of them volunteers. Wonderful gift shop and great coffee shops. Well worth a visit.

My first visit and it was so moving. From the excellent new visitor centre to the train, monuments and staff it could not be faulted. There is so much to see that we could not do it justice in the 3 hours we were there and so will return soon. The moving monuments to so many deserving regiments and social groups need careful time and consideration and I could not bring myself today to see the monument of those shot at dawn in World War One or study the horrors of those imprisioned by the Japanese .
It is all so beautiful and a must see for all

I can't believe I'd never visited before as I've lived in Lichfield for thirty years now.
I suppose I was expecting a big 'village hall' type set-up but I couldn't have been more mistaken.
We attended a classic car show and were all amazed at just how beautifully set out and tendered to the whole site was.
Immaculate gardens, excellent restaurants/coffee shops and even a beer if you fancy it.
It was just not what any of us were expecting.

I would strongly advise a visit.

The National Memorial Arboretum is now in its second decade.
The changes that it has undergone since its beginnings are remarkable.
When I originally visited in the early years, it was a somewhat damp, puddly sort of place that could be very muddy in parts.
It is now well established with good roads and paths and very good signposting. Clearly the place is a work in progress though. New memorials are being built and developed all the time and I fully expect the National Memorial Arboretum to grow substantially over the next ten years.
Currently it occupies more than 150 acres.
In many ways, now is probably the best time to visit while it is not too large to easily find your way around.
You can choose to have a very rewarding visit on both warm and cool days providing you dress sensibly. I would suggest that very wet days are best avoided though.
You probably need to allow at least three hours for your visit, although you could probably get a flavour of the place in as little as two hours. Most visitors will spend a lot more time seeing everything they want to and the time will fly by.
The National Memorial Arboretum is easy to find just off the A38 dual carriageway in Alrewas. It is well signed with prominent brown tourist signs.
There is a large parking area with good sized parking spaces. Parking is pay and display and just £3.00 to park all day. There are plenty of blue badge spaces close to the Remembrance Centre.
The Remembrance Centre is a well designed modern, contemporary and very welcoming space that includes very clean and smart toilet facilities, a spacious reasonably priced and comfortable restaurant, a coffee shop, a well stocked gift shop with unusual and imaginative souvenirs. Helpful and knowledgeable volunteers and guides are plentiful and will assist you with any information you require to help you plan your visit.
Regular events take place and full details are included on The National Memorial Arboretum website.
The National Memorial Arboretum has put a lot of thought in being accessible to all.
The memorials generally commemorate the military, but also commemorate public services and important charity and civilian institutions. They range from the grand and elaborate to the simple and quite humble. Lots are set in peaceful woodland or calm, reflective wildflower glades. It is impossible not to be moved by the power of most of the memorials.
I personally found the Burma Death Railway and the Sumatra Railway Memorials which feature track originally laid by POW's, especially moving. The Shot At Dawn Memorial on the eastern edge of the Arboretum, is guaranteed to make you think about the terrible fate of young, frightened soldiers shot in WWW1 for apparently being cowards.
If this is your first visit, then the frequent Land Train tour (Around 1 hour duration £5.00 adults/£2.00 children) is a really good way to find your way around the site and get an idea of what you want to see in more detail. There is a clear and very informative commentary.
If you choose to simply walk around the grounds then the roads and paths are all level and well maintained and there are plenty of benches to take a rest or simply to sit and contemplate our recent military history.
The National Memorial Arboretum is well worth a visit. It is a moving and interesting place to see. It is not all sad though and aspects are quite uplifting so you will definitely enjoy your visit.
Admission is free and all profits from the parking, shop, restaurant, coffee shop and other events go towards the upkeep of the arboretum.

Very inspiring place to visit
Peaceful and tranquil and very thought provoking

The monument is lovely and incredibly clever how the sun rises between the walls throwing a shaft of sunlight across it

The gardens are wonderful and you could easily spend half a day here

Exhibitions and educational elements also make it interesting for young and old alike

Large cafe with good choice of food and drink

Good gift shop with wide selection of quality products

Wheelchair friendly

Considering how close this is, I've never taken the time to visit before today , and how much I've missed out,
Very easy to get to just off the a38,
Parking is £3 all day but free entrance .
Fantastic reception building with great facilities , lovely tea room and cafe, but nothing quite prepares you for the site itself .
Truly awe inspiring and very humbling.
It is a magnificent tribute to so many who have paid the ultimate sacrifice .
From the armed services , to the emergency services from around the world .
The monuments are fantastic and as you read the names and some of the stories , you can feel the welling up of emotion the place brings .
Fantastic day out, you will need to visit again as over 300 monuments set in 150 acres .
Land trains and buggies for those less able to walk round the site.

Having been welcomed at the visitor centre the first thing to note about the NMA is the wonderful volunteers. I visited with a coach party over two days and the numerous volunteers we came in to contact with were friendly, helpful and knowledgeable.
Then there is the visitor centre itself which is great with a cafe / restaurant and a shop where you don't feel you are being conned or ripped off.
Outside first impressions don't begin to show the vastness of the site or give any real idea of the array of memorials to be found.
Your eyes are immediately drawn to the Armed Forces Memorial atop it's 'hill' rightly as a centerpiece but there is so much more.
The thought and care that has gone in to the various memorials is simply stunning. So many have incredible detail and information from conception to construction that we ran out of superlatives as we toured the site.
So many memorials moved us.
Respect, honour and love are on open display as they should be.
A day is not long enough to take everything in, there is a lot of ground to cover away from the land train route and please, please talk to the volunteers who have a wealth of information that you might otherwise miss.

We visited with a mixed group of adults and children (4,8,12). The weather was shocking and rained throughout. We however still had a wonderful visit. We had visited the first time during October half term when their were craft activities and volenteers dressed in uniform giving talks which the children found fascinating. on our last day there were no activities but this didn't matter. This is a beautiful and tranquil place which can't be lost by bad weather. The children liked the parks which they enjoyed. The cafe is also nice, though a little pricey. A moving place of reflection for all ages.

I have visited the NMA a few times over the past few years, mostly with the Royal British Legion Riders and Ride To The Wall. It's always been very impressive but Saturday 6 May 2017 was the first time I'd visited since the new visitor centre opened.
A wonderful job has been done of the new centre, great cafe facility, shop and atrium area. The whole place copes very well with the large influx of bikers that is inevitable when we descend on the Arboretum for memorial commemorations.

The NMA was an incredible place. A great, enjoyable day out whilst still remaining peaceful and respectful, in-keeping with the reason it was first created.
The individual memorials are interesting, emotive and thought provoking to look at but maintain a sense of reverence and respect for all those people who have given there lives in many different ways.
In this cynical age it was grate to find somewhere that wasn't overly expensive or tacky, just designed to get as much money out of you as possible. I got a real sense that it is genuinely about memorial and not money.
The food in the restaurant was grate quality but not over priced. Also, as a wheelchair user, it was lovely to go somewhere where wheelchair access wasn't just a legal requirement or an afterthought. The paths were completely flat and smooth with at least 3 wheelchair accessible toilets that I saw.
The staff were nothing but friendly, helpful and passionate about the NMA. All in all a grate day out

Beautiful and moving memorials to so much more than the armed forces. The train and buggy rides were informative and convenient though booking in advance is recommended...the buggy tour is especially good as you can ask your guide questions, the train ride is a recording. We were all moved to tears on several occasions...

Visited on a sunny saturday in May.
£3 to park, and a suggested donation of £5 per person. Gift aid available.
Marvellous venue with many poignant memorials to our war dead.
Decent restaurant and cafe on site. Gift shop too. New kids play area beyond main buildings and chapel.
Guided tour and roadtrain also available. Huge 120 acre site (if I remember correctly?) is immaculately maintained and we spent a good few hours here. Paid my respects to a school friend who was killed in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.
The main memorial is stunning, with a sobering number of names carved onto it's walls.
I shall certainly visit again.

First visit .Absolutely fantastic place. Staff very helpful. Very moving. Free entrance but you are asked to make a donation, £5 is suggested.Well worth it.

Enjoyed a couple of hours walking around the grounds which are maintained to a high level. Definitely worth a visit.

This was our second visit the first being 2 years ago.

The new reception area, restaurant and shop are a great improvement and very fitting. All the volunteer staff were very welcoming and friendly, the ones in reception helped us find a particular tree dedication site and others around the site often stopping to talk as we walked around. They obviously enjoy their role and were very knowledgeable, helpful and empathetic.

It is useful to take the train around the site early on as this gives you a good overview of what is there and also information about many of the memorials. However I do think that it would be even more useful if it was a hop-on-hop-off train.

On our last visit we realised that it is a lot more than just military memorials and we went this time to specifically visit the very moving SANDS garden and to find a tree, very recently dedicated to those from out local area who lost their lives in the 2 World Wars.

If you are able to get into the chapel for the 2 minutes silence at 11am it is well worthwhile.

We walked a lot in order to see the Far East Prisoner of War memorials, the Christmas Truce memorial and the Shot at Dawn memorial which is particularly poignant and discovered lots of others on the way. The centrepiece of the Armed Forces Memorial inscribed with over 16000 names of those who have died in service since the end of World War ll, and space for many more is very significant.

I am sure that we will visit again, more than once, as it is a very special place

It is great that we have a place that recognises the service of all those people who have risked their lives to keep us safe. The place is laid out in zones that recognises the contributions of all our various armed services

This was our second visit, never run out of things to see, very moving. Treated to a classic car show on the Sunday. Love visiting this place. Burma railway memorial very impactful.

Visited here today and found it very interesting but also very humbling. Fabulous place with great restaurant and coffee shop. Lovely gift shop too. We really enjoyed it and the staff are very helpful and friendly . Definitely worth visiting. Makes me feel blessed to be alive thanks to all these very brave and special people who gave their lives for us.

The National Memorial Arboretum is a truly amazing place. Situated in the middle of the country it provides a peaceful and extensive area for the nation to honour those who made the extreme sacrifice. The facilities are first class and the whole experience was both very interesting and uplifting. Highly recommended

Visited the National Memorial Arboretum and found it to be a humbling experience. So much to see and take in and so well well kept and respectful.
The grounds are so special and peaceful where we can take in the many aspects of memory not only from serving personnel but the organisations that also played a part in the lives of people

We visited the arboretum over the Bank Holiday. It was a beautiful day, extremely thought provoking and a lovely place to reflect. The grounds are beautiful and the memorials well marked and cared for. We only had time to visit half the memorials but we will be returning. The surroundings are peaceful and walking around reading the dedications was, in some cases quite saddening, the overriding feeling I had was pride, humility and thankfulness that individuals thought humanity was worth losing their lives for.
Facilities are excellent we had some lunch in a very busy restaurant and prices were reasonable. The shop was also reasonably priced and staff helpful. This is a wonderful place to spend a day, there is a children's play area and other activities on site. The site is free to enter and car parking just £3. Canine family members are more than welcome to join you. There is a small charge for some exhibitions and donations are very welcome. We hear and see the worst of humanity too often, these individuals are an inspiration and demonstrate the best that humanity has to offer. We will remember them.

What a great place to visit. Loads to see. The gardens are lovely. You can spend hours here. There is a nice café and shop. Only £3 to park all day. Spend time exploring it all and leave a donation to support it.

Wow this is an impressive place! There is a new visitor centre with cafe and gift shop as well as access to the main arboretum. The site covers a massive area with areas paying tribute to all sections of the services. It would take hours to walk the whole thing! There are also information places around we particularly were impressed by the Far East exhibition. Everywhere is well maintained. When we visited parking was £3 for however long you stayed but entrance was free (voluntary donation can be made). For those less mobile there's a land train and mobility scooters available at extra cost but the place is generally flat so ok to walk but it could be tiring trying to cover such a big area. Dogs are not allowed on the main site but there are special dog walking trails available close by. There's also a play area for children. So something for everyone. One last thing the ice creams are great!

The site is really well thought out with great staff and facilities. The grounds are so special and the kind of visit you have is really what you make it. The children's playground was welcome as our 4 year old needed something to encourage her to get round the rest of the site. A wonderful atmosphere.