Portsmouth historic dockyard
We recently made a trip down the Portsmouth to visit the historic dockyards. The absolute highlight for me was the ruins of the Tudor warship the Mary Rose – Henry VIII’s favourite ship – or so they say. The Mary Rose was sunk just out of the harbour of Portsmouth in 1545. In the 1970′s it was found, and in 1982 it was raised. They have been impregnating it with a synthetic polymer to stabilise the timber against decay, so you can view it in it’s “shower” of preserving fluids. It is amazing to think that you are looking at a ship that is almost 500 years old. Another bonus was that when it sunk, it was covered in silt and preserved. So many objects were recovered along with the ship. Even some of the cannons, dated from their manufacture at around 1535.
These cannons were all individually cast, which meant no two were the same. That provided the problem of different size cannon balls.
Other ships that were at the historic dockyard included the HMS Victory (Lord Nelson’s ship and the oldest commissioned ship). There were also a fair contingent of the British Navy as Portsmouth is the main base for the Navy. We were lucky to see all three of their air craft carriers.
We ended our sightseeing day with fish and chips on the beach.
The rest of the photos are here