NELSONS BLOOD (Flagship Portsmouth at the Historic Dockyard)

Name: angusreid

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Product:	Flagship Portsmouth at the Historic Dockyard
Date:	21/06/01 (349 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: great and historical

Disadvantages: none

Here lies the spot where Nelson fell!
Not bloody surprised, I nearly tripped over that plaque myself!

I wish I had a pound for every time someone said that.

Let me explain, in 1998 I was a guide onboard HMS Victory, in the Historic or Maritime Museum in Portsmouth.

Let me give you a virtual tour before letting you into more detail about Portsmouth and her world famous Dockyard.

Good morning ladies and gentleman, welcome onboard HMS Victory, the oldest commissioned warship in the world.
My name is Angus, and I will be your guide for today.
There are 2 restrictions whilst you are onboard today and that is no smoking and no flash photography!
Please mind your head as we walk around the ship and watch out for fixtures and fittings that you may trip over.
Now if you would like to follow me up the stairs, please use both sides.

We are now in nelsons cabin, and if you look around you can see the furniture that nelsons cabin would be furnished with.
The armchair belonged to the Duke of Cornwallis and was left for Nelson when he took command of the ship.
The sword you can see on the table was presented to Nelson in Naples.

Moving on to the upper deck

This wheel would be used to turn the rudder and unlike the Errol Flynn movies, it took quite a few men to turn it.
Just behind you on the deck is a plaque to show where Nelson was fatally wounded, by a French Sniper in 1805, it was from that very spot, Nelson was carried to the Orlop deck, where he later passed away.

Moving on, past the original cannons, of which there were some 110, more even if they top loaded the ship at wartime.
The largest of the cannons being a 64 pound carronade. (That is big!)

Down we go to the Orlop deck. Orlop, meaning false deck (roughly) in Dutch.
Notice the deck is painted red, this is because Surgeon Beattie had his sickbay down here and all the wounded would be transported down
here during a battle.

Here you can see a painting marking the last resting place of Nelson, before his last famous words, disputably Kiss me Hardy, although Scholars of the time say it was more likely to be Kismet Hardy, meaning fate.

Up we go passed the galley, which would cook, for 800 men, normally a stew of rancid meat, salted pork or beef with peas or beans shoved in.

Here we see a hammock similar to the one used at the time, who would like to try it?
Go away little kid; I have my eye on that young blonde!

Thank you for your time today and I hope you enjoyed your tour around HMS Victory.

There you go!
Not bad for something I did 13 years ago.

As well as the Victory, you can find the Mary Rose, or HMS Driftwood as we called her.
The Mary Rose is an audio tour, where they give you a set of headphones and a tape in your language.
Not the same as a daft Geordie spinning bad jokes!

HMS Warrior can be found in this maritime extravaganza, she was the first built iron Clad steam war ship in the world, and is much more plush than the Victory, although she has not got that woody smell to her.

Insight to the Victory.

I shared my chips with Melvyn Bragg while he was interviewing Sir William Golding for the South Bank Show

The Victory is haunted and few people, if any would spend the night in the hold.

I would not even go down there on my own!

None of the timbers are original

The original timbers came from the new Forrest

She was launched at Chatam

In 1765 ish

And that will do until I decide to update this.

Angus

Summary: