Are you looking for a professional guide to take you on a battlefield tour? Are you working as a battlefield guide, would you like to find out more about becoming validated as a battlefield guide?
The International Guild of Battlefield Guides is the foremost organisation dedicated to touring the battlefields. We enable guides and historians to share information, expertise and knowledge; we help visitors to find accredited battlefield guides who can help them to explore the past. We all have one thing in common: a love of military history and a desire to ensure the sacrifices of past generations in war are not forgotten.
Our Honorary Members include Tonie and Valmai Holt, the pioneers of battlefield guiding, and our Guild President is the award-winning historian and author, Dr. Spencer Jones.
Find a Battlefield Guide
Search for a battlefield guide. Find an accredited battlefield guide who can help you to explore the battlefields – search by campaign, battle, or country.
Join The Guild
Find out more about the International Guild of Battlefield Guides’ Accrediation Progamme, and all the associated benefits of being a Guild Member.
Find out more The two-day programme over the weekend (starting on Friday evening and ending Sunday evening) will include battles and battlefields from: We will also see the very extensive British Napoleonic and 19th century era fortifications, in many cases used and adapted by the Germans. There will be opportunities for members to take and assist in stands to supplement the local history with the wider historical context of the period/era. We could have a group dinner together on the Saturday evening, and a traditional Guild quiz night, probably the day before. We are expecting to procure a discounted group accommodation rate at the Merton Resort hotel -https://www.seymourhotels.com/merton-hotel . The daily B&B room rate for two sharing will be about £105, with single occupancy being slightly lower. Other costs will be advised in due course. Flights are available from a number of UK airports, ferries from the UK south coast and from St Malo and Granville. Unfortunately, the schedules for airlines and ferries have not been published yet. The main local tourist website is www.jersey.com We are also aiming to organise optional activities and visits covering other battles, prehistoric warfare, naval engagements, and an afternoon on the range between Thursday (18th) and Monday (22nd) for those who may like to stay longer. Current ideas include: Dependant on numbers, there is also a possibility to organise parallel non-battlefield/military history visits/activities for spouses, partners etc who might not ordinarily come on a IGBG event. Any members interested in going to Jersey in May 2023, please let Marc Yates know with numbers, sole/twin occupancy preferences and whether they would be interested in the optional activities / visits etc - email governance@gbg-international.com. A suggested reply form is here, and any information provided will assist in planning the detail and costing of the weekend. Every year the Guild of Battlefield Guides holds its Annual Golf Championships; more details nearer the time from James Davis. The annual Badged Guides Dinner will be held in London on 18 August 2023. Further details from Tony Scott in due course. A Cold War recce is planned for September 2023. It will be held in the former East Germany (GDR) and will study both NATO and the Warsaw Pact Naval capability, Air capability, Land capability, the use of Special Forces, Intelligence gathering and the Soviet plan to invade Berlin and Western Europe. The event would have the usual quiz, prizes and a visit to Colditz Castle. The Guild will be running a recce in Normandy in November 2023. Dates are Friday 3 November to Sunday 5 November. The aim is to cover the British and Canadian break out battles. Please note the dates in your diary for now. Full details will be available in the New Year and we will be asking for names then. We are looking for three or more experienced guides to volunteer, one to lead each day. Once we have the leads for each day or part of a day we can then pull the programme together. We can split the days up between lead guides if we need to. The general topics for each day are likely to be: There is an option to do either Falaise, or Op COBRA and the Americans at St Lo, and if someone wanted to volunteer to do one of those we could drop one of the other topics. If you would like to volunteer to take on one of the main topics as lead guide please get in touch with Simon Burgess on sfb22@hotmail.com. Our Annual Conference and AGM weekend will be held in the Doubletree Hotel, Lincoln. We will include the usual mix of activities – validation opportunities, Guild AGM (Saturday afternoon), Guild Awards Dinner, a quiz, bring-and-buy stall, and a range of speakers. There will be a pre-Conference visit to the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, with a hangar floor visit. More details of the Conference will follow in due course. The Guild will conduct an Ypres recce 11-15 March 2024 , very much along the lines of the 2022 Guild Somme recce. The purpose will be to focus on some of the lesser known aspects of the Immortal Salient. The outline programme will be: Transport will be in shared cars Please indicate interest to John Cotterill on john.cotterill@btinternet.com, so that he can look at accommodation in Ypres , which is always difficult to arrange for large numbers at short notice.
Coming Up
Guild weekend: Jersey – 2500+ years of military history
Preliminary Programme
Accommodation, costs and travel
Options
Alternative activities and visits
Expressions of Interest
Annual Golf Championships 2023
Accredited Guides’ Annual Dinner
Cold War Recce
Normandy Recce
Annual Conference & AGM 2024
Ypres Recce
Our Partners