Visiting the Mary Rose at Portsmouth Dockyard
One of my aims for this winter is to visit some of places and things that I always say I want to see but never do. With this in mind I set off for the Historic Dockyards at Portsmouth.
Although I had vague memories of visiting HMS Victory on a school trip when I was about ten I remembered next to nothing and my aim was to see the Mary Rose on this particular trip. People tend to think of both ships as being from the same period in time but the Mary Rose was in fact already about 250yrs old when work on the Victory began. Over the years I had watched programmes about the salvage of items that were strewn around the wreck and on the seabed until finally the excitement as the hull itself was raised and moved ashore. The Mary Rose Museum contains thousands of the items that have been bought up from the sea, the amount is phenomenal. Many of the things found aboard have added considerably to our knowledge of Tudor life and times and I found it fascinating thinking about how long these things had lain on the seabed.
The hull of the ship is still itself in the process of restoration. You are able to view it, but from a viewing gallery protected by glass. This is because the hull lies in a dry-dock, which has been covered over and is carefully monitored to maintain a constant temperature and humidity. The Mary Rose is then constantly being sprayed with a special concoction of water and PEG or Polyethylene Glycol a water soluble wax. Whilst small items can be treated by total immersion the size of the hull prohibits that. So the hull is sprayed 24/7. Treatment began in 1994 and is anticipated to be completed by 2008. It will then probably take a further four years to dry the hull out completely.
Having bought an all-inclusive ticket and as it was a sunny day I decided to do the Harbour Tour. A fascinating trip round the harbour with a wonderful talk from the skipper who seemed to know just about everything. Not only about the history and future of the dockyards themselves but also about every boat and ship that was moored up there. He did this in addition to steering the boat and making sure we didn’t come a cropper under the hull of the massive French ferry that was coming into the harbour. It was an amazing sight to watch as it pivoted round before docking. The harbour was full of vessels and I have never seen so many naval ships in one place, I had no idea that these were all kept here.
As I bought a ticket which covers all the exhibits and museums on the dockyards site (only £16, very good value for what you get) I shall be going back another day to have a good look round HMS Warrior and Victory and the other things that I didn’t have time for. I found it fascinating and a very worthwhile trip and one that I would definitely recommend.
More pics
Portsmouth Historic Dockyard - Feb 07
