Day 1 Part 1 Of Our Trip To Portsmouth And The Isle Of Wight,

what a glorious day,

to start our holiday to Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight,

we took the tram to East Croydon station,

then the train,

to Portsmouth harbour,

and off we go!

coffee and cakes, 'Cheers!',

Diana all set for the trip,

the journey takes a couple of hours,

as soon as you get off of the train there is history, H.M.S. Warrior,

time for a pose,

the ship is a 40-gun steam-powered armoured frigate, built for the Royal Navy in 1859–1861, She was the name ship of the Warrior-class ironclads, Warrior and her sister ship HMS Black Prince were the first armour-plated, iron-hulled warships, we will not be visiting her on this trip, but we will be back!

we started our walk to the hotel,

passing a number of harbour side restaurants,

and pubs,

we were travelling light, we just had the Billingham,

as it was a tad early to check in,

we decided on a late breakfast/early lunch,

spicy chicken for Diana,

with a J2 orange,

scampi and chips for myself, 'Cheers!',

meal finished and we were on our way,

past the entrance to the dockyard,

and this high rise,

to our hotel,

the Royal Marine Club,

we were soon booked in and out again, passing this public house I saw something that brought back childhood memories,

a display of hot water bottles, back in the day there as no such thing as central heating, so these pottery bottles would be filled with hot water to keep you warm in bed at night, 

Diana mentioned that she would like a chain for Christmas, and here it is!

in the distance the Spinnaker,

we were greeted by Henry VIII as we walked into the dockyard,

today we were buying tickets for the Mary Rose, 

we made our way past the Warrior,

and some of the workshops,

this one interested me,

outside a clinker built boat, 

it looked so nice,

boat building at its finest,

copper riveted throughout,

a quick pose,

or two,

as we made our way past the gift shop,

and Citron snack van,

H.M.S. Victory I have to say we when visited her a couple of years ago, we were both disappointed to see that she had been demasted and painted a not very nice shade of yellow/pink, to go with the black, below is how we imagined her,

to us she looked so much better in yellow and with her masts,

a quick pose,

we passed H.M.S. M.33, in dry dock, in her razzle-dazzle colours,

she was built in 1915 on the orders of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. She was a floating gun platform designed to bombard coastal positions from the sea,

 Her first active operation was the support of the British landings at Suvla during the Battle of Gallipoli in August 1915,

the colour of Victory a bit difficult to describe,

but we still think the old colour scheme looked a lot nicer,

in the distance one of the UKs aircraft carriers, H.M.S. Prince of Wales,

this was as close as we could get to her, like her sister ship she has two ops towers, 

this is where we are headed, the Mary Rose exhibition,

looking back at the Victory,

we had already bought tickets,

so in we went,

past the ships bell,

buried like the rest of the wreck for so many years,

a quick pose,

before the introduction by Henry VIII himself,

in the first hall there is a animation of what you as a gunner would have seen,

as the fleets sailed,

one of the ships cannons,

the exhibition is laid out deck by deck,

with lots of explanations of what went where,

and of course lots of artifacts, 

a time line of how the vessel came to be partially saved,

the upper deck,

and here she is, I remember all of those years ago, watching as she was lifted from the Solent, along with 60 million other viewers worldwide as the operation was shown live,

the gun deck, is a mirror image of what is opposite,

although difficult to see in the photograph, a projector beams moving images onto the wreck to show how people would have gone about their daily lives on board,

Diana found all of this a lot more interesting than I thought she would,

the decks can easily be seen,

when the ship went down, there was a huge loss of life, of the nearly 500 men on board, no more than 35 survived, some of their remains were found, 

and thanks to conservation efforts much can be learned from their time alive,

we looked at more of the mirror image,

and artifacts that were found,

gruel of the day,

was made in this cauldron,

all 350 liters of it,

this is one of the reconstructions from skeletal remans, researchers hope to identify what proportion of the crew might have been archers, however there is one skeleton, already identified as an archer, analysis of his skeleton suggests that he stood 6′ tall, well above average for the period, though a strong build would have been essential in order to use the powerful 16th-century longbow, which had draw weights of up to 90kgf while high-status artefacts found on his person, including an ivory wrist guard, a pewter plate and a silver ring, could hint that he held a high rank in the company,

looking back at the wreck there was another projection of life aboard ship,

we are now going down to the lower decks,

where some of the stores are located,

and you could feel hard tack biscuits, that were a staple for the crew,

this as an interactive display, you had to choose what you and the crew would eat,

Diana's choice,

next into the lift,

that had a view of the wreck,

and a model of how the ship would have looked,

there were a considerable number of archers onboard,

and for a bit of fun you can draw a longbow, which is a lot harder than it looks,

I managed to fully draw the bow twice righthanded, 

and twice left handed, I could not fully draw the bow for a third time with either hand, back in the day the archers must have been so strong, I read that an archer could loose 6 arrows in the time it took to load a flintlock musket, crickey I could not pull the bow to its full extent more than twice!

then it was Diana's turn,

she used a slightly different technique to myself,

but got about halfway in the end,

we then went into a section where there were airlocks,

so you could see the wreck without looking through glass, the air I guess is dried to keep the hull for further decay,

a quick pose,

back to the hull,

we were both amazed,

at all of the restoration work that went into both raising and preserving the hull,

Diana made a short video,

we then entered a part of the display,

that talked about the people and what we knew of them at the time,

here you could touch a piece of the Mary Rose that has been treated like the rest of the hull, and smell the tar from a piece of hemp rope,

and listen to music that would have been played at the time,

there was also a selection of artifacts, 

on display, I stopping this post now as it is large, for the rest of our visit please look for Day 1 Part 2 by clicking the Older Posts button bottom right.