⚓One day. Five centuries. Endless moments you’ll talk about all the way home.
Ships to explore. Stories to fall into. Coffee stops. Harbour views. And discoveries around every corner.
Make a day of it.
🧭 Generations of Discovery.
Book online now to save.
🔊 “This was the best experience we’ve had for a long time.”
So much to explore, you won’t fit it into one visit. Your ticket gives you 12 months to come back and keep discovering.
⚓ Take your time. There’s more waiting.
🤿 ⚓ From city noise to the silent service.
Looking for things to do in Portsmouth? Step inside HMS Alliance at the Royal Navy Museums: Submarines.
Explore the Cold War submarine where Royal Navy submariners lived and worked beneath the sea. Move through narrow passageways, low ceilings and machinery packed into every inch of space.
Life on board demanded endurance, teamwork and absolute trust in the crew around you.
Step inside HMS Alliance and discover what life was really like below the surface.
🧭 Where 500 years never gets old.
Reserve your visit online and enjoy flexible payment options.
⚓ Life below deck aboard HMS Victory was hot, noisy and relentless.
Deep on the middle gun deck stood the Brodie stove, introduced in 1781 by inventor Alexander Brodie and built to keep more than 800 men fed at sea. This cast-iron innovation could boil, bake, grill and even distil seawater, though fresh water was carefully reserved for the sick and injured.
Here, meals of salted beef or pork stew and hard ship’s biscuit were prepared as the ship rolled beneath the crew’s feet. Each sailor consumed thousands of calories a day, essential fuel for the physical demands of life at sea.
At the centre of it all was the ship’s cook, often working alone in intense heat and constant motion, to keep the crew fed.
Step below deck aboard HMS Victory and discover the people and routines that kept the ship alive.
⚓ If these decks could talk, they would tell you about courage, fear, hope and survival.
Looking for things to do in Portsmouth? Explore Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and discover 500 years of Royal Navy history.
Walk through historic ships, museum galleries and waterfront spaces shaped by the people who lived, worked and served here. Every step reveals stories of endurance, sacrifice and survival.
History is not locked behind glass here. It invites you in.
🧭 Where 500 years never gets old.
Pay in interest-free instalments and enjoy the day without the upfront cost.
🔊 “A weekend break spent in Portsmouth to visit the dockyard. So much to see and do. Definitely worth a trip.”
Ships to board. Museums to explore. Stories everywhere you turn. Five centuries of history, all in one place.
⚓ A full day out that keeps revealing more.
⚓ He was 24 years old when he took command under fire.
On 9 May 1918, during the Second Ostend Raid, Lieutenant Victor Crutchley volunteered for one of the most dangerous naval operations of the First World War, an attempt to block German U-boats from reaching the sea through the Bruges Canal.
Aboard HMS Vindictive, the situation quickly descended into chaos. His captain was killed. The navigating officer was severely wounded. Under intense enemy fire and with the ship too damaged to fully block the canal, Crutchley took command, ordered the ship scuttled and led the evacuation himself. He then searched the ship for survivors before taking command of a crowded motor launch carrying wounded sailors to safety.
Alongside him was Lieutenant Geoffrey Drummond, wounded three times but still helping rescue 40 men from Vindictive before collapsing from exhaustion. Nearby, Lieutenant Roland Bourke returned to the harbour entrance in a small motor launch to rescue stranded sailors after the main force had withdrawn, his vessel hit dozens of times by enemy fire.
All three men were awarded the Victoria Cross for their actions that night.
Today, see the keys Crutchley used to secure HMS Vindictive before she was scuttled at Royal Navy Museums: Portsmouth, small objects connected to an extraordinary story of courage, survival and leadership under fire.
📷 HMS Vindictive keys
📷 Royal Navy - Lt Victor Crutchley VC, Lt Roland Bourke VC, Lt Geoffrey Drummond VC
⚓ From platform queues to epic views.
Looking for things to do in Portsmouth? Discover the Mary Rose Museum at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Come face to face with the Tudor crew of the Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s warship that sank in 1545. Personal belongings, tools and traces of daily life reveal the people who lived and worked aboard the ship.
These objects survived beneath the sea for more than four centuries, preserving a powerful human story in extraordinary detail.
🧭 Where 500 years never gets old.
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📆 ⚓ On this day in 1765, HMS Victory first touched the water.
Built from around 2,000 trees and the skill of hundreds of shipwrights, labourers and craftsmen, she was the largest and most advanced warship of her age. People gathered just to watch her launch at Chatham Dockyard, long before anyone knew the story she would become part of.
Now, 260 years later, another extraordinary chapter is unfolding.
For the first time in generations, Victory’s remaining masts and bowsprit have been carefully removed as part of Victory Live: The Big Repair, a once-in-a-generation conservation project protecting the ship for the future. Beneath the vast new conservation structure, visitors can experience HMS Victory in a way few ever have before, closer to the ship, her construction and the scale of the work keeping her alive.
Walk the decks. Stand beneath her exposed rigging points. See conservation happening in real time.
This is not just the story of a ship. It is the story of the generations who built her, fought aboard her and are now preserving her for those still to come.
🔔 Since 1510, the Mary Rose bell has witnessed the ship’s entire story.
Cast in bronze in 1510 and marked with the words “I was made in the year 1510”, the bell was created in the same year the Mary Rose was commissioned by Henry VIII.
More than three decades later, when the ship sank in 1545, the bell went down with her.
It was one of the last objects recovered from the seabed, discovered beneath the wreck on the starboard side, silent for centuries before returning to the surface once more.
Today, it connects visitors directly to the life of the ship and the people who sailed aboard her.
Discover it for yourself at the Mary Rose Museum.
⚓ It’s not just about what you see. It’s about what you discover.
Looking for things to do in Portsmouth? Walk through historic ships, stand beside objects recovered from the sea and uncover the lives of the sailors, shipwrights and families connected to Britain’s naval past at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
History here is not just something you observe. It is something you experience.
🧭 Generations of Discovery at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Book online for the best price and spread the cost with interest-free payments.
🔊 “Fantastic visit. Would highly recommend to anyone with even a slight interest in history, naval heritage, or simply a great day out.”
One ticket. 12 months to come back and discover more. Step aboard historic ships, explore world-class museums and uncover stories that span five centuries.
⚓ There’s always more waiting next time.
