This is the 105mm naval gun from the foredeck of Germany’s WW1 torpedo destroyer SMS B.98 SMS B.98 was the lead ship of Commander Heinrich Schuur’s 2nd Torpedo Boat Flotilla, which part of the scouting force at the 1916 Battle of Jutland. During the battle, she was...
Royal Navy Museums has announced a date for the new £15m Royal Marines Experience at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. The former Royal Marines Museum closed in 2017 with plans to move to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and create a new centre for Royal Marines heritage. Over the last 9...
When HMS Victory‘s masts were removed at the end of April*, six 19th century coins and tokens were discovered under the foremast. Placing coins on the mast step before the mast is lowered, was a long-time maritime tradition intended to bring good fortune**. So it might have...
HMS Victory’s team of conservators, shipwrights and riggers have started taking down her remaining masts as part of The Big Repair – the ten-year, £42m project to conserve Nelson’s flagship for future generations. As Stuart Sheldon, Lead Rigger at the National Museum of the Royal Navy, puts...
Almost one year ago, Brittany Ferries introduced their new flagship ‘Guillaume de Normandie‘, intended to replace the old ‘Normandie‘ on their Portsmouth – Caen/Ouistreham* route. Like her sister ship, Saint-Malo (SM), which began operating Portsmouth – St Malo two months earlier, the Guillaume de Normandie (GdN) is...
A new display of ‘Jolly Roger’ flags flown by Royal Navy submarines is launched today (27/03/2024) at The Royal Navy Submarine Museum, Gosport. It will expand the museum’s previous collection of Jolly Rogers by including the earliest known surviving example and the museum’s newest acquisition, a Jolly...
It’s Trafalgar Day tomorrow (21 Oct) and the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) is revealing some of Lord Nelson’s letters in a temporary exhibition that will run till 16 April 2023. ‘Nelson In His Own Words: Treasures from the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation’ features rare &...
The WWII Tank Landing Craft, LCT 7074, a veteran of D-day, has finally made the journey from Portsmouth Naval Base to her new home on Southsea where she will be the newest addition to the D-Day Story museum. The newly renovated 59-metre long, 300-ton ship was moved...
The HMS Victory conservation project has reached a major milestone with the completion of her new support system. As I wrote 18 months ago (Review: HMS Victory. Take a look, there’s a good explanatory video), the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) and BAE Systems have...
Long overdue, the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) and Mary Rose are collaborating on ticketing. It was always ludicrous that a visit to the Historic Dockyard in Portsmouth meant dealing with two separate ticketing systems. Ludicrous but understandable. The two organisations that share the Historic...
I’ve saved the best for last, in the Portsmouth/Gosport museum reviews. The Explosion! Museum of Naval Firepower may be the least well-known of the National Museum of the Royal Navy* sites, but I think it’s the most interesting. Or, put another way, it’s the one I would...
The Royal Navy Submarine Museum is one of the two satellite sites of the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN)* on the other side of Portsmouth harbour. For that reason, it maybe doesn’t get as much attention as the ships and other museum attractions in the...
The Mary Rose is one of Britain’s most important historic artefacts and should be on everyone’s ‘Must See’ list. When she sank into the silt of the Solent almost five centuries ago (474 yrs), she became a Tudor time capsule containing the personal effects, weapons, tools, clothing,...
The operational history of HMS Warrior 1860*, the world’s first iron-hulled, armoured warship was both dull and brief, and that’s what makes her so interesting, because when launched she was, without question, the most powerful warship afloat. So how come she never distinguished herself in action? Well,...
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