We have long been fascinated by the Maginot Line. It remains a technical achievement rivalled only in scale by the Great Wall of China. The Chinese, we should add, number among the nations who have explored the line today. As a museum we have spent years exploring the works of the Line and we enjoy some wonderful support from a number of associations involved in preserving its works to this day.

Our connections have allowed us to amass a number of original items from the Line; many are unique outside Maginot structures and which we present in an ongoing exhibition. At the time of writing, it is not possible to display everything we have at once, so we are able to rotate the display in the actual museum.


As our collection has grown, so have the size of the items we have been able to access. This offers us the wonderful opportunity to present them in a setting as large as life itself. recreating for our visitors a slice of the Maginot Line here in the United Kingdom.

Naturally, it would be impossible to recreate an actual fortress; we don't have either the money or an area of land to go that far, but we can present certain parts of what could be described as every fortress and none.

When the actual Line was being planned back in the late 1920's, a number of sites were identified for potential constructions. In some cases, work began only to be shelved or reduced in scale; in others, the concept never progressed beyond the paper. It seemed somewhat fitting that our new construction should enable one of these unbuilt works to finally be realised, hence the Gros Ouvrage Hatten was born.

The G.O. Hatten allows the visitor to explore and appreciate the Maginot without having to travel hundreds of miles across France. This said, we equally hope that some of our visitors will be inspired to go and discover the Line for themselves.

By clicking on the key below you can explore our fortress and discover the original items in our collection. Please note, we have not yet created every room listed here. We have also opted to place the areas in the context of a genuine fortress; in these examples, the Gros Ouvrage Shoenenbourg, Casemate Esch and Casemate de Dambach-Nord.