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St Ann's Church, HMNB Portsmouth

Church of England church buildings in HampshireReligious buildings in PortsmouthUnited Kingdom Anglican church building stubs
St Ann's Church within Portsmouth Historic Dockyard geograph.org.uk 899910
St Ann's Church within Portsmouth Historic Dockyard geograph.org.uk 899910

St Ann's Church is an Anglican chapel within His Majesty's Naval Base Portsmouth. It is regarded as the spiritual home of the Royal Navy, and contains numerous memorials to men lost at sea.The original church was built in 1704, on the site of what is now Admiralty House. The present church was opened in 1786, and is built in red brick in Flemish bond. It was possibly designed by Marquand, a Navy Board surveyor, working under Samuel Wyatt at Admiralty House. The contractors were Thomas Parlby & Sons. The church suffered some bomb damage in May 1941, and was restored in 1955–6. As the oldest surviving chapel in a navy yard, it was Grade II listed on 25 September 1972.In October 2012, the church held ceremonies marking the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War, attended by HRH The Princess Royal. As of 2015 the current chaplain is Revd. James Francis, RN. The HMS Royal Oak Association holds an Act of Remembrance annually at the church on the Saturday nearest to 13 October, the date of the sinking of the battleship HMS Royal Oak (08) at Scapa Flow in 1939. At the service on 9 October 2019, eighty years after the ship was torpedoed, a memorial stone was unveiled in the church by HRH The Princess Royal. Although the last survivor died in 2016, some one hundred and fifty relatives and descendants of the crew attended.

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St Ann's Church, HMNB Portsmouth
Queen Street, Portsmouth Portsea

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N 50.801227777778 ° E -1.10495 °
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HMNB Portsmouth (HMS Nelson)

Queen Street
PO1 3HX Portsmouth, Portsea
England, United Kingdom
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St Ann's Church within Portsmouth Historic Dockyard geograph.org.uk 899910
St Ann's Church within Portsmouth Historic Dockyard geograph.org.uk 899910
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Mary Rose
Mary Rose

The Mary Rose was a carrack in the English Tudor navy of King Henry VIII. She was launched in 1511 and served for 33 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany. After being substantially rebuilt in 1536, she saw her last action on 19 July 1545. She led the attack on the galleys of a French invasion fleet, but sank in the Solent, the strait north of the Isle of Wight. The wreck of the Mary Rose was located in 1971 and was raised on 11 October 1982 by the Mary Rose Trust in one of the most complex and expensive maritime salvage projects in history. The surviving section of the ship and thousands of recovered artefacts are of great value as a Tudor period time capsule. The excavation and raising of the Mary Rose was a milestone in the field of maritime archaeology, comparable in complexity and cost to the raising of the 17th-century Swedish warship Vasa in 1961. The Mary Rose site is designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 by statutory instrument 1974/55. The wreck is a Protected Wreck managed by Historic England. The finds include weapons, sailing equipment, naval supplies, and a wide array of objects used by the crew. Many of the artefacts are unique to the Mary Rose and have provided insights into topics ranging from naval warfare to the history of musical instruments. The remains of the hull have been on display at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard since the mid-1980s while undergoing restoration. An extensive collection of well-preserved artefacts is on display at the Mary Rose Museum, built to display the remains of the ship and its artefacts. Mary Rose was one of the largest ships in the English navy through more than three decades of intermittent war, and she was one of the earliest examples of a purpose-built sailing warship. She was armed with new types of heavy guns that could fire through the recently invented gun-ports. She was substantially rebuilt in 1536 and was also one of the earliest ships that could fire a broadside, although the line of battle tactics had not yet been developed. Several theories have sought to explain the demise of the Mary Rose, based on historical records, knowledge of 16th-century shipbuilding, and modern experiments. The precise cause of her sinking is subject to conflicting testimonies and a lack of conclusive evidence.

HMNB Portsmouth
HMNB Portsmouth

His Majesty's Naval Base, Portsmouth (HMNB Portsmouth) is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Clyde and HMNB Devonport). Portsmouth Naval Base is part of the city of Portsmouth; it is located on the eastern shore of Portsmouth Harbour, north of the Solent and the Isle of Wight. For centuries it was officially known as HM Dockyard, Portsmouth: as a Royal Dockyard, Portsmouth functioned primarily as a state-owned facility for building, repairing and maintaining warships; for a time it was the largest industrial site in the world.From the 1970s, the term 'Naval Base' began to be used for Portsmouth (and other Royal Dockyards), acknowledging a greater focus on personnel and support elements alongside the traditional industrial emphases. In 1984 Portsmouth's Royal Dockyard function was significantly downsized and downgraded, and was formally renamed the 'Fleet Maintenance and Repair Organisation' (FMRO). The FMRO was privatised in 1998; in 2002, shipbuilding (which had not taken place on site since the late 1960s) resumed in the form of block construction, but this again ceased in 2014.Today, Portsmouth is the home base for two-thirds of the Royal Navy surface fleet, including the two aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales. Naval logistics, accommodation and messing are provided on site, with personnel support functions (e.g. medical and dental; education; pastoral and welfare) provided by Defence Equipment and Support. Other functions and departments, e.g. Navy Command Headquarters support staff, are also accommodated within the Naval Base. The base is additionally home to a number of commercial shore activities, including the ship repair and maintenance facility operated by BAE Systems Maritime. The base is the oldest in the Royal Navy, and it has been an important part of the Senior Service's history and the defence of the British Isles for centuries. It is home to one of the oldest surviving drydocks in the world. The former Block Mills are of international significance, having been the first factory in the world to employ steam-powered machine tools for mass production. The Royal Naval Museum has been on the site since 1911. In 1985 a partnership between the Ministry of Defence and Portsmouth City Council created the Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust to manage part of the historic south-west corner of the Naval Base, under a 99-year lease, as an heritage area, the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. It allows members of the public to visit important maritime attractions such as Mary Rose, HMS Victory, HMS Warrior and the National Museum of the Royal Navy.