Beaulieu

Beaulieu

Having travelled the length and breadth of the country to visit many wonderful museums and collections we continued our journey to Beaulieu located in the New Forest National Park near Southampton.

Owned by the Montagu family since 1538 Beaulieu is currently part of a very select club of Treasures House of England which lists it as one of ten most magnificent palaces, houses and castles in England. Along with the Palace House, Abbey and gardens, Beaulieu is home to over 250 automobiles and motorcycles. The Vehicle collection is extremely varied and comprises of vintage cars and motorcycles, motor racing cars including formula 1 and cars used on screen such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Del Boys three wheel Reliant Regal. Also within the motor museum are the Top Gear cars used in the television series from their attempts to create practical mobile homes to their even worse efforts at converting cars into boats to cross the English Channel to France.

As the weather was with us it was a great day out to explore the place and grounds plus take the opportunity to take some great shots of cars for my automobile section of my book. If you are in the area it is definitely well worth a visit with a great variety of things to see. A selection of the photographs taken is below.

S.S Great Britain

S.S Great Britain

After enjoying our time in Portsmouth the previous two days and with ‘my chauffeur’ starting to complain about all the travelling we decided to make our way to Bristol which is considerably closer to home and see the S.S Great Britain.

Built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and launched on 19th July 1843 by Prince Albert she was the biggest iron hulled ship ever built with a revolutionary propeller after changing his original design of a paddle steamer to cope with the rough seas. 

In 1852 on her first voyage to Melbourne from Liverpool which took her around sixty days carrying 630 passengers. On her many journeys to Australia she also carried the first All England cricket team including H.H Stephenson and Dr. E. Grace. Having made a total of 32 trips around the world she was scuttled in the Falklands in 1937 before being salvaged and returned to Bristol in July 1970.

Now the S.S Gt Britain lies in the very Bristol dry docks where she was built and to protect the hull which is corroding they have built a glass platform over to keep the rain and atmosphere out. The humidity is controlled with a giant dehumidifier to stop any more corrosion and to protect her hull.

This is a great day out to see another example of British maritime history and some and an example of the extraordinary imagination and invention of one of the world’s greatest engineers of his era. The museum has plenty to see and interact with that would ensure enjoy your day, although some of the historical smells in the cabins, kitchens and stores were slightly over powering but children would enjoy it. Below are some of the photographs I have taken during the visit.

Mary Rose

Mary Rose

The second day in Portsmouth we headed back to the Historic Dockyard to visit the remaining attractions contained within in the admission price including a harbour tour,  the Royal Navy national museum, action stations and some more which I will let you check out when you visit.

The main agenda of the day and first point of call was to visit the Mary Rose Museum and see what had been raised from the Solent and the conservation work. 

As Henry VIII’s favourite ship, the Mary Rose was one of the earliest ships built in Portsmouth between 1509 and 1511 to carry heavy guns on the orders of King and became the flagship of the fleet. She carried two types of guns, bronze guns which were muzzle-loaders and wrought iron breech loading guns. She was also armed with many different types of shot for different purposes such as stone, lead or iron for destroying hulls, spike shots for destroying rigging and scattering shot which was iron dice or flakes of flints in canisters and this was used to take out the opposing crew. She was also carrying longbows and arrows

During skirmishes with the French fleet on 19th July, 1545 she capsizes in the Solent where she remained until 1971 despite several failed attempts to salvage her. In 1836 her resting place was rediscovered by John and Charles Deane who recovered items which included guns. After raising the hull in 1994 they spray it with a water soluble wax polyethylene glycol to protect the wood by penetrating it and preserving it for all time. 

The National Lottery in 2008 gave £21 million to build a permanent museum for the public to visit and you can see the timbers of the hull being carefully dried which will continue until 2017. Again this is another great place to visit especially considering they have found over 19,000 objects protected in silt for over 430 years. Many of these are in excellent condition and can be found in the museum on display including leather shoes, cutlery and skeletons of crew, archers and a dog.  A selection of the photographs taken is below.