Defender Henry day 4

Defender Henry day 4 Portsmouth and Southsea A journey along the main south coast highway brought us to Portsmouth which is the home of the Royal Navy. First we saw Southsea castle which is part of the fortifications that Henry built all around the coast of England. Southsea castle is where Henry was standing when he saw the Mary Rose, the pride of Henry’s Navy, sink just a quarter of a mile off shore with a great loss of life. Today we saw a school group that were being entertained and enthralled by a group of live history players. These players had the children totally under rapt attention, the kids even curtseying to the Lord.

The players even fired a cannon in the keep and the gunsmoke hung around for a long time afterwards. They finished off with music and dance and the kids were led off in a long conga so we took our leave to go to the historic dockyard. The Mary Rose ship hall will be open to the public early next year to enable more of the 22,000 artefacts to be displayed on site. The ship hall will be magnificent and I can’t wait to see it, the half of the ship will be matched by a replica construction that you will be able to walk in and just turn to look at the existing ship Also in the Dockyard is HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship at the battle of Trafalgar. HMS Warrior, the Navy’s first iron clad steam/ sail powered ship and the most powerful ship afloat in 1860. A visit to the clouds was next, just a short walk from the Dockyard stands the Spinnaker tower, 588 feet high with a viewing platform that you can see over 20 miles. The clouds were a bit low today so our viewing was down to 5 miles. The platform has a glass floor that you can see waht seems to be a mile stright down.

The day was finished off with fish and chips at the Still & West pub, built in 1700 right on the mouth of the harbour. We watched huge cross channel ferries sailing in and out so close that you felt that you could reach out and touch them. Not only that there was a group of Morris dancers on the courtyard, traditional folk dancing with bells on their knees.