The Mary Rose – 25 Years of Visits

The story of the Mary Rose goes back over 500 years, from when the plans were made for the building to commence in 1510 right to the visitors that walked through the gates of Portsmouth dockyard today to go and see her. She was Henry VIII’s flagship and for almost thirty-five years this vessel had been at the forefront of the King’s navy, right up to the sighting of a French fleet off the Isle of Wight that led to the Mary Rose to head out of Portsmouth harbour and capsize in front of Henry himself. Nobody knows the actual death toll, some say it is up to 700 people, all we know is that only around 35 survived, mostly due to the fact that anti-boarding nets were covering the ship to repel the French boarding teams, instead trapping anybody on board from escaping from the sinking ship. 

The Deane Brothers worked on the wreck in the early 1800s, salvaging a few cannons before once again the remains were lost to history, that is until the early 1970s when Alexander McKee made it his mission to locate the Mary Rose and finally tell the story of this forgotten shipwreck. He was successful and within a few years had salvaged some of the most amazing artefacts that told us more about Tudor history than any other archaeological site. But he was planning something bigger – to raise the entire ship itself. On 11 October 1982 his dream became a reality when he stood by The Prince of Wales (now King Charles III) to watch Henry VIII’s ship finally see the light of day after 437 years.

It was May 1999 when I first came to Portsmouth dockyard to see the museum, I had read about the wreck as a child and was fascinated to learn more about the story, particularly the salvage effort to get an entire shipwreck up and into a museum, a mammoth task that had very rarely been achieved (save for the Vasa in Sweden nearly thirty years before that). But this bank holiday weekend allowed me to finally see the wreck for myself.

Paying for my ticket at the dockyard gate, I made my way over to a more modern and flat roofed building that was out of context compared to the surrounding structures that dated anywhere between the mid-1700s and Victorian times, inside was a wealth of cabinets full of Tudor treasures, the pewter jug that I had seen in a school textbook years earlier, the shiny metal plates that the sailors would eat their meals from, cannon rigged up against the backdrop of a reconstruction of the Mary Rose’s gunports, the list was endless. Models showed how the wreck was raised and photograph displays catalogued the decade-long salvage of the most incredible relics ever salvaged from a shipwreck. Needless to say the gift shop cost me dearly…. I had to get as many souvenirs and books as possible to learn more about this ship and her crew.

But now it was on to the ship itself, kept separate from the artefacts in the dry dock that the wreck was placed in back in 1982. The wreck of the Mary Rose is only half there, as the ship laid on the seabed on her side, the exposed section of the ship was ravaged by time, tides, fishing nets, sea creatures and everything else that could possibly wear it away over four centuries. What remained had been covered in protective mud, the seabed of the Solent being a protector of this time capsule and so as the wreck was raised and later placed in an upright position, it gave a unique exposure to each deck like a cutaway diagram in real-life. As I went to what now resembled a huge white tent, the walkway leading to the Mary Rose was noisy, you could hear the spray systems still covering the timbers with a chemical substance that would replace the water within the timbers, eventually the treatment would stop but back in 1999 it was still very much a work in progress. The glass protecting the visitors from the chemical sprays were very misted up and dirty, it would be impossible to keep them clean, but you could make out the ship as you walked from one end to the other. The cutaway of an archer was placed at the top mid-ships section to signify where the archaeologists had found the remains of an archer with his leather pouch, I had made a note to look out of this after seeing it being highlighted on the TV show Blue Peter back when they did a special report in about 1993. Fascinated to see the Mary Rose at last, I knew that this would not be the last time I would visit the museum and indeed I made a number of further visits over the next few years until finally the museum closed for the last time.

Funding had been granted for the Mary Rose to be housed with all her artefacts in a new purpose-built museum covering the dry dock, all the artefacts were moved out of the current museum and placed in storage while the building work went ahead until finally in 2013 it was time to open the doors. As a member of the Mary Rose society I was gutted that my membership did not get me any kind of access to the ceremony, in fact they had disbanded it completely and renamed it to which I quickly joined and was then invited to be a current guest’s “plus one” to enjoy the opening. At the time I was dating a woman who I had to tell to hang on while I attended this last-minute event, incredibly she completely understood the importance of this and actually waited up the road for me to come back out. I genuinely wondered if she would be waiting there by the time I got out!

The build up was excellent, I met Margaret Rule who was part of the original excavation team back in the 1970s and this then turned into an amazing ceremonial unveiling of the museum with the bell from the Mary Rose making an entrance surrounding by members of the crew of HMS Duncan, the doors opened for guests and I quickly headed inside to see a remarkable exhibition of artefacts and treasures. If I had thought that the previous museum was good, this one just blew me away. To actually see through clear glass windows at the Mary Rose wreck now that the sprays had been stopped was amazing to finally see. But today it was a passing visit as I quickly checked all the exhibits, thanked my host and ran to make sure my date was still waiting for me at the dockyard gates.

Since that day I have visited the Mary Rose Museum so many times I have stopped counting. You can stand on a balcony overlooking the wreck and actually be in the same room as the lost ship, the most surreal experience is being able to smell the wood as you walk in, something that you don’t think about until you are there. More artefacts and exhibitions have been introduced over the last decade including a dog that has been named Hatch (because it was found next to one of the hatches) and a 4D experience of the salvage dives. The museum hosts a café and a well-stocked gift shop that always has something new that then appears on my Christmas list.

Due to my passion about the Mary Rose, it was right that at some point I should include it in my books and I have not only done a chapter in both The 50 Greatest Shipwrecks and Shipwrecks of the Solent, but in tribute to the discoverer I have dedicated the latter to Alexander McKee who in my opinion is a hero of archaeology and this entire project would be nothing without him. Two things at this point made me feel great about this museum, first of all Shipwrecks of the Solent is on sale in the gift shop and secondly my girlfriend did wait for me that day in 2013 and wanted to know all about what I had seen. That girl is now my wife and we have been married since 2016, needless to say we have spent many hours in the Mary Rose Museum ever since.

So in 25 years I have seen a number of amazing changes to the Mary Rose, from the cramped museum with limited artefacts and a ship-hall that you could barely see through the glass, to a custom-built marvel that shows the Mary Rose in all her glory and continues to tell the story of a tragic day in 1545 that ended with a piece of Tudor history being frozen in time.

Here’s to the next 25 years of visits!