Qualla: Castlemartin Training Area

Castlemartin Training Area: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Pembrokeshire Coast National Park is one of the most protected stretches of shoreline in Britain - cliffs, limestone arches, seabird colonies, a famous coastal path. Inside it, fenced off and active 44 weeks a year, sits 6,000 acres of working tank range. Castlemartin has been firing high-velocity rounds into its limestone bluffs since 1938. Hikers see the warning flags from the coast path. Locals know the dates of the firing notices. Out at sea, a shifting exclusion zone reaches as far as 12 nautical miles offshore when the heavier ammunition is in use. It is a strange place: a working army range inside a national park, an extreme noise inside extreme quiet.

Castlemartin Training Area: From Cawdor Estate to Tank Range

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Ministry of Defence built Castlemartin in 1938 on a mix of deserted and inhabited farmland and on parts of what had been the Cawdor Estate. The Royal Armoured Corps wanted somewhere big enough to run tank gunnery without endangering British villages. The South Pembrokeshire h...

Castlemartin Training Area: German Tanks in Wales

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The strangest chapter began in May 1961. The newly reactivated West German army needed somewhere to train its tank crews, and the British Army of the Rhine's main range at Bergen-Hohne was crowded. A NATO agreement signed in Paris allowed the Bundeswehr to use Castlemartin's 5,00...

Castlemartin Training Area: Three Soldiers

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Live fire on a tank range is dangerous work, and the danger has costs. In May 2012, Ranger Michael Maguire of the 1st Battalion, The Royal Irish Regiment was killed when a stray round struck him in the temple while he rested in what was supposed to be a safe area, helmet and body...

Castlemartin Training Area: A National Park That Fires Live

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Castlemartin sits inside the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and within a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The combination feels contradictory but is not unique - large parts of the British military estate happen to be ecologically valuable precisely because they have been ...

Castlemartin Training Area: The Range Today

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Defence Training Estate Pembrokeshire took over administration in 1999 and now manages Castlemartin as the largest single component of its Welsh holdings. The estate also runs the air-defence range at Manorbier southwest of Tenby, the Penally Training Camp just outside Tenby, and...