Saturated with centuries of seafaring history, Portsmouth also has an abundance of shopping, sight-seeing and dining diversions for the contemporary landlubber.
Portsmouth has long been England’s naval capital. In 1545, King Henry VIII stood on the stone battlements of Portsmouth’s Southsea Castle watching his flagship Mary Rose head out to sea to take on the French fleet. Unfortunately, this was the ship’s final voyage; it sank with the loss of some 500 sailors.
The south coast port is also where Vice Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory was built (1759-1765), the most advanced warship of its time. It was on HMS Victory that Nelson engaged the French and Spanish fleets off Cape Trafalgar in 1805. Nelson won the Battle of Trafalgar, but paid the ultimate price. Felled by a single bullet as he paced the quarterdeck, he lived just long enough to know the battle’s outcome. A gold-leaf plaque marks the spot where he died.
Portsmouth is also home to HMS Warrior, now berthed just outside the entrance to Portsmouth Dockyard at Victory Gate. Constructed in 1860, the Warrior was the world’s first iron-hulled, steam-powered armoured warship.
Victory Gate was built in 1711 and officially visited by Queen Anne later that year. Its whitewashed Porter’s Lodge dates from 1708. The porter was one of the most powerful men in the dockyard, responsible for keeping out strangers, ringing the clock-in and clock-off bell for workers, and selling beer to the sailors “to enable them the better to carry on their labour and not to distemper them”.
During World War II, the port was at the forefront of the war effort, especially during the lead-up to D-Day (June 6, 1944), when Allied forces landed at Normandy in one of the greatest amphibious attacks in history, turning the tide of the war.
Portsmouth is still the heart of Britain’s Royal Navy and home to three aircraft carriers – HMS Illustrious, HMS Ark Royal and HMS Invincible, which, after the Falklands War of 1982, returned home to a large and noisy welcome.
Today, parts of Old Portsmouth are just as they were centuries ago, with cobbled streets and twisting laneways where many a sailor reeled home after celebrating a return to land after months at sea. You can still see the centuries-old stone battlements, and the narrow, terraced homes along Old Portsmouth’s High Street enjoy panoramic views across the Solent channel to the Isle of Wight.
Stay
Express Holiday Inn
The Plaza, Gunwharf Quays.
Hilton Portsmouth
Eastern Road, Farlington.
Shop
Cascades Centre
Commercial Road.
+44 23 9285 1255.
Gunwharf Quays
Portsmouth Harbour.
Palmerston Road
Southsea.
Eat and Drink
Albert Road
Port Solent
+44 23 9221 0765.
See and Do
Charles Dickens’ Birthplace Museum
393 Old Commercial Road.
+44 23 9282 7261.
D-day Museum
Clarence Esplanade, Southsea.
+44 23 9282 7261.
Langstone Harbour
+44 23 9282 6722.
Portsmouth Historic Dockyard
Victory Gate, HM Naval Base.
+44 23 9283 9766.
Royal Marines Museum
Eastney Esplanade, Southsea.
+44 23 9281 9385.
Southsea Castle
Clarence Esplanade, Southsea.
+44 23 9282 7261.
Spinnaker Tower
Gunwharf Quays.
+44 23 9285 7520.
Source: Qantas The Australian Way February 2009