Portsmouth Delegation to the UK - Day 4

Tuesday was our “tourist” day and we were picked up at 9:30 by Mr. David Parker, a personal tour guide arranged by the Portsmouth Council, took us on a walking tour of old Portsmouth and the Royal Navy Dockyards area. We passed some now familiar landmarks, such as the Dolphin Pub and Portsmouth Cathedral, heading down to the harbor area of old Portsmouth. This is the area where Charles Dickens was born and raised while his father was a paymaster for the Royal Navy shipyard. Lord Nelson is the local hero here, as it was from this area that he departed to conquer the Franco-Spanish Armada at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Mortally wounded in the battle, his body was returned to Portsmouth, where he became a national hero. We stopped at his statue along the battery row to pay our respects, before touring the Royal Garrison Church, which was hit by a V2 rocket during WW2 that destroyed most of its roof. The roof has remained unrepaired as a monument to the perfidy of England’s enemies.

We continued to walk along the seafront towards the RN Dockyard area, which has some large, square-rigged ships on display, and were privileged to enter the new “Mary Rose” Exhibition Hall, which will open to the public later this month. This amazing exhibit is the result of many years of dedicated work to raise the hull of this 16th warship almost intact from where it sunk off Portsmouth in 1545. Thus was one of the first ships commissioned by King Henry the VIII, and he witnessed it capsize during an engagement with the French fleet off the Portsmouth seafront area. Most of the 500 man crew perished and the hull itself was lost until it was located by divers several years ago. At great expense and effort, the hull, which was found to be well-preserved under the harbor mud, was raised and take to the Portsmouth Dockyard, where it has been painstakingly studied and reconstructed. For the past 30 years, the hull has been bathed in water and chemicals to limit further deterioration. The exhibition hall is built around the hull itself and is truly a sting over world class exhibit, costing over 35 million pounds to complete. It opens officially in a few weeks.

Our tour concluded with a special visit to the newly constructed RN ship, HMS Duncan, where we were taken on a special tour of this new, high tech ship, the latest addition to the British fleet. This was a special treat to those of us who served in the US Navy and was greatly appreciated.

We completed this long day with dinner at – where else – a pub, this time the Swan Brewhouse.  We depart for home tomorrow morning and I’ll provide more photos and a wrap up in a few days. All in all, we all think the trip has been highly successful and that we have established warm and close ties with our namesake city. We look forward to hosting their new Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress (her companion) to our 375th events scheduled for late August.

Doug