On the second day of our weekend away we visited the historic dockyard at Portsmouth. This wasn't our first visit. In May 2023 we visited Portsmouth and the dockyard. I paid for two ultimate explorer tickets, which meant we could return as often as we wanted in the next year . We visited 5 or 6 times and had a great adventure but unfortunately I appear to have lost a lot of my photographs. I am particularly annoyed about the ones I took on our first trip when we went on a tour of the harbour. This is an hours boat trip round Portsmouth harbour and past the main dockyard. Both The Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales aircraft carriers were in dock and I took some fabulous photos. Never mind, annoying though it is they were only photos and I have my memories of the trip. Anyway on our last trip we decided to enjoy another harbour trip. We were the first on the boat and so could choose our seats. Remembering the best side for getting photographs I nabbed great seats. As luck would have it the Prince of Wales aircraft carrier was in dock. It had just returned from NATO exercises and its deck had marques covering it. We were informed it was having it's flight deck resurfaced to make it safer for the planes.
When the tour started we got a good view of HMS Warrior, the first steel plated warship. She never served in a war setting.
We passed several ships but I didn't make notes of their names or status so the pictures will be all I can offer.
You can just see a ship in dry dock in the photo below. It is having a complete refit. You can see a Dragon on its bow.
There were cargo ships in dock.
and also a cruise ship (not one of the huge cruise ships.)
and also a ship heading for the scrap yard having been sold.
We also passed the marina.
By the end of the tour we needed to rehydrate. The weather was very hot and combined with the reflection off the water we needed to apply more sun screen. After coffee we visited the Mary Rose exhibition. We had visited this before but didn't complete seeing all the exhibits so had planned a return trip.
The Mary Rose was a warship built in Portsmouth for King Henry VIII. It was built between 1509 and 1511 and rebuilt in 1536 and was Henry's favourite ship. It was sunk in 1545. The Mary Rose was sank in the Solent between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight whilst trying to stop French ships landing on the Isle of Wight. It sank without firing a shot. In 1982 it was raised from the sea bed with many preserved artefacts. I remember following the raising of the ship on television and it fascinated my father. He would have loved to see the remains of the ship and all the artefacts.
There was so much to see but I was taken with the skeleton of the ships dog and the backgammon board.
The rest of the afternoon we spent visiting HMS Victory. I have quite a few photos so I will write a separate post.
Tomorrow is the first day of June and I'm going to spend a little time this evening working out what I want to try and achieve in the month. It's always good to have a plan even if you don't stick to it.
Take care
Lyndsey
The Mary Rose was a warship built in Portsmouth for King Henry VIII. It sank in 1545 and was recovered in 1981, with many artefacts still on board.
The Mary Rose was built between 1509 and 1511, and rebuilt in 1536, and was Henry's favourite ship.
Wow, what a trip through history! I would have loved to have taken this tour for real, but isn't is wonderful that we can do things virtually in our world! The bones of the ship's dog is very interesting.
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