Isle of Wight

 Isle of Wight, x
Nov 102023
 

November 10, 2023

I traveled to the Isle of White via ferry, leaving out of Portsmouth to Ryde.

Once you disembark from the ferry, you have a long walk to town on the Ryde Pier. Ryde Pier is an early 19th-century pier and is the world’s oldest seaside pleasure pier.

The pier was designed by John Kent of Southampton, and its foundation stone was laid in June 1813. The pier opened in July 1814 with, as it still has, a timber-planked promenade.

By 1833, the pier had grown to a length of 745 yards. It is this pre-Victorian structure that has, with some modifications, carried pedestrians and vehicles ever since.

I had but one day, and the Isle of Wight is much bigger than one expects, so the day was spent at Brading Roman Villa.

The Isle of Wight is home to Osborne House, a former royal residence. The house was built between 1845 and 1851 for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as a summer home and rural retreat. Albert designed the house himself in the style of an Italian Renaissance palazzo.  Sadly, it was closed.

The Isle is also home to the Needles, a row of three stacks of chalk that rise 98 feet out of the sea off the western extremity of the Isle in the English Channel.  Sadly, from Ryde, the trip by bus is two hours, and there just was not enough time.

The Museum that houses the Roman Villa

However, the Brading Roman Villa was a treat and well worth the trip. Brading Roman Villa was part of an Ancient Roman farm, and while poorly excavated during the Victorian Era, it still has a few mosaic floors that make it a very special place.

The first building constructed at Brading Roman Villa appeared in around 100 AD, not long after the Roman invasion of Britain in 43 AD. This consisted of the South Range, which was soon followed by the larger North Range in 200 AD.

By the 4th century, the Grand West Range was completed as a winged corridor villa, making up the main building of the family’s residence. Over time, the interior of the West Range was changed, with walls moved and mosaics added to suit the changing times and fashions.

The cockerel-headed man is thought to be dressed as a Lanista, a trainer and owner of gladiators.  Its symbolism at Brading is a mystery.

The figure in the center of this panel is an astronomer. He points to a celestial globe while on his right is a pillar sundial, and to his left is a horizontal sundial.

To head back to Portsmouth, I took the Hovercraft, which is faster and a fun extra adventure.

On the voyage between Portsmouth and the Isle of White are the Palmerston’s Follies.

Two of Palmerston’s Follies

The Palmerston Forts were built during the Victorian period on the recommendations of the 1860 Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom, prompted by concerns about the strength of the French Navy.  There was considerable debate in Parliament about whether the cost could be justified. The name comes from their association with Lord Palmerston, who was Prime Minister at the time and promoted the idea.

The works were also known as Palmerston’s Follies, partly because the first ones had their main armament facing inland to protect Portsmouth from a land-based attack, and thus (as it appeared to some) facing the wrong way to defend from a French attack.

Another reason for the Folly tag is because, at the time of their completion, the threat from the French navy had passed, and because the technology of the guns had become obsolete before the forts were finished, they were the most costly and extensive system of fixed defenses undertaken in Britain in peacetime.

The Solent Fort or No-Man’s Land Fort

The Solents Fort, or No-Man’s Land Fort, has a long and sordid history after it was sold by the government.

The Fort’s second life began as a luxury home/hospitality center, including an indoor swimming pool and two helipads. In July 2004, Legionnaires Disease found in the hotel’s water system forced its closure. The Fort was put up for sale in 2005 and again in 2007, but the company collapsed.  In March 2008, Harmesh Pooni, claiming to be the owner, barricaded himself inside the fort in protest against the administrators of KPMG.

The fort eventually opened as a hotel in April 2015.  As of this writing, the island is again up for sale.

 

 

Portsmouth, England

 Portsmouth, United Kingdom, x
Nov 102023
 

November 10, 2o23

HMS Warrior (launched in 1860) has been restored to its original Victorian condition.

Portsmouth’s history dates to the Roman times. It is said that Portsmouth was founded c. 1180 by Anglo-Norman merchant Jean de Gisors.

The city is home to the first drydock ever built. It was constructed by Henry VII in 1496. Portsmouth has served as a significant Royal Navy dockyard and base for centuries.

The Dockyard, which is still a major source of employment, dates from 1496 when the town was already a naval base. It was greatly expanded after 1698 and now covers more than 300 acres. In the 1860s, four masonry forts were built along the Spithead to defend the port and naval base.

Portsmouth is the birthplace of notable people such as author Charles Dickens, engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, former Prime Minister James Callaghan, and actor Peter Sellers.

 

Spinnaker Tower

The Spinnaker Tower is a 560-foot-tall observation tower built to be the centerpiece of the redevelopment of Portsmouth harbor.  The tower’s design was chosen by Portsmouth residents from a selection of three different designs in a 1998 public poll.

The tower was designed by local firm HGP Architects and engineering consultants Scott Wilson and built by Mowlem.

The Portsmouth Naval Memorial

The Portsmouth Naval Memorial commemorates approximately 25,000 British and Commonwealth sailors who were lost in the World Wars, around 10,000 sailors in the First World War, and 15,000 in the Second World War. The memorial features a central obelisk, with names of the dead on bronze plaques arranged around the memorial according to the year of death.

The Royal Garrison Church

The Royal Garrison Church is thought to have been built in 1212 by the Bishop of Winchester as part of a hospital and hostel for pilgrims. After the Reformation, it was used as an ammunition store before becoming part of the governor of Portsmouth’s house during Elizabeth I’s reign.

King Charles II married there in 1662. The church was destroyed by fire bombs on January 10, 1941, but the chancel survived.

The Cathedral Church of St Thomas of Canterbury, more commonly known as Portsmouth Cathedral, is an Anglican cathedral church. It is the cathedral of the Diocese of Portsmouth and the seat of the bishop of Portsmouth.

 

A sweet little planter with a little girl reading a book underneath. This sits in the reflective garden of Portsmouth Cathedral.

Portsmouth Cathedral

Found on the lawn in front of Portsmouth Cathedral

Portsmouth suffered severe aerial bomb damage during World War II, and substantial clearance and rebuilding took place in the postwar decade.

Ancient grave markers in the front of the Portsmouth Cathedral

Vernon Gate of Gunwharf Quay

Gunwharf Quay is now a shopping center.  It was constructed in the early 21st century on the site of what had once been HM Gunwharf, Portsmouth. Gunwharf was one of several such facilities that were established around Britain and the Empire by the Board of Ordnance, where cannons, ammunition, and other armaments were stored, repaired, and serviced, ready for use on land or at sea. Later known as HMS Vernon, the military site closed in 1995 and opened to the public as Gunwharf Quays in February 2001.

Boundry Walls of Gunwharf Quay

Point Battery (which is also known by its earlier name, Eighteen Gun Battery) is a former gun emplacement.

The gun battery was created as part of Bernard de Gomme’s rebuilding of the fortifications around Portsmouth in the late seventeenth century.

Vice-Admiral John Benbow (March 10, 1653 – November 4, 1702)

A figurehead that caught my fancy in the museum

This is just a very small sampling of Portsmouth, as I only really had one day, but it is truly a delightful town with the most amazing and informative museums.

The HMS Victory

 Portsmouth, United Kingdom, x
Nov 102023
 

Portsmouth, England

November 9, 2023

The HMS Victory is undergoing a massive overhaul, so I was not able to see her as a whole ship from the outside.  The inside, however, is an amazing walk through history.  It is difficult to convey through pictures or even words, but the 2-3 hours I spent on The Victory were some of the most enlightening and fascinating hours I have ever spent learning history.

A quick look at the exterior of the ship and its restoration.

I am an American. And yet I know who Admiral Nelson was and The Battle of Trafalgar, but when you walk this ship, you really do feel like you are in the battle from beginning to end.  It is a very special experience.

The Battle of Trafalgar was to witness both the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte’s plans to invade Britain and the death of Admiral Lord Nelson.

The prow of the Victory

HMS Victory is a 104-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was ordered in 1758, laid down in 1759, and launched in 1765. In the rating system of the British Royal Navy used to categorize sailing warships, a first-rate was the designation for the largest ships of the line. Building the HMS Victory took around 6,000 trees 90% were oak, and the remainder were elm, pine, and fir.

She is still a commissioned ship, so she has 245 years of service as of 2023, the world’s oldest naval vessel still in commission.

Victory is best known for her role as Lord Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21st, 1805.

Touring the Victory is a several-hour process and worth every moment.  You begin at the top and work your way down to the hold.  All along, there are history stops and volunteers that ensure you are the most well-informed person regarding the HMS Victory and the Battle of Trafalgar when you leave.

What one does not really comprehend is how someone such as Horatio Nelson was as revered and admired as any rock star of today.  His movements followed, his battles studied, and his death a major state period of mourning.

What never comes across in movies or books is how even the Captain’s rooms are broken down and turned into cannon sites.  The lovely blue paneling and doors could be taken down and stored or simply thrown overboard should the ship find itself in a surprise attack. Thus turning the entire area into a battery of cannons.

This is Nelson’s bed. The man only had one arm, so getting in and out of a ship’s bed such as this was something he could do on his own.  He was a very proud man and would not accept the help of others when doing simple everyday tasks.

This is what one thinks of when one thinks of sleeping on a ship.

The Carpenters Walk

One of the larger cannons on the HMS Victory. The lead sheathing on the top was to protect the firing pin area from the elements until it was needed.

A battery of 32-pounder cannons. The 32-pounder guns were sets of heavy-caliber pieces of artillery mounted on warships in the last century of the Age of Sail. It was usually the most powerful armament on a warship. The British version fired a 32-pound projectile at about .3 miles per second. They were most famous for being mounted on HMS Victory.

Firing mechanisms changed over the years to become safer. If that is actually possible, this was a newer flintlock system.

Tools used in cannon operation and firing.

This marks the spot where Admiral Horatio Nelson was hit by a musket ball fired from an enemy ship at a range of 50 feet. The ball entered his left shoulder, passed through a lung, then his spine at the sixth and seventh vertebrae, and lodged two inches below his right shoulder blade in the muscles of his back.

Nelson was carried below decks and died on this spot at half-past four in the afternoon, three hours after he had been shot.  The man asked not to be thrown into the sea.  Instead, his body was placed in a cask of brandy mixed with camphor and myrrh, which was then lashed to the Victory’s mainmast and placed under guard. The HMS Victory had to be towed to Gibraltar after the battle, and on arrival, Nelson’s body was transferred to a lead-lined coffin filled with spirits of wine.

After laying in state, on January 9th, a funeral procession consisting of 32 admirals, over a hundred captains, and an escort of 10,000 soldiers took the coffin from the Admiralty to St Paul’s Cathedral, where he is buried.

It is well known that rats were an issue on ships.  However, what I learned was that rats love gunpowder and would gnaw through entire barrels to get to it.  This was obviously an issue regarding the gunpowder itself, but also the fact that the rats would be covered in it and scurry around the ship where open flamed lanterns sat about.

For this reason, gunpowder barrels were always lined in copper or lead.

Rats were also a source of food for the hungry sailors, despite the sailors 5000 per day calorie diet.

About 1,500 British seamen were killed or wounded in the Battle of Trafalgar. In the Spanish and French fleet, 14,000 men were lost.

As I have said, this was an amazing experience, and should you find yourself in the neighborhood of Portsmouth, England, set aside a minimum of one to two days to learn about the history of the Age of Sail.

The Mary Rose

 Portsmouth, United Kingdom, x
Nov 102023
 

Portsmouth UK

November 9th, 2023

The Mary Rose

If you want to get an honest and complete look at what naval service and war were like in the 1600s, 1700s, and early 1800s, visit Portsmouth, England.

The quality of education you receive while touring both the Mary Rose and the Victory is second to none.

The Mary Rose was a warship in Henry VIII’s “Army by Sea”, built in Portsmouth and launched in 1511. She had a career that spanned 34 years.

When Henry VIII came to power in 1509, he inherited a small navy from his father, with only a couple of sizeable ships. Henry commissioned two new ships to be built: the Mary Rose and the Peter Pomegranate. The large vessels represented Henry’s ambition for naval expansion and to send a clear message to England’s enemies.

The Mary Rose required a huge amount of timber. It is said that around 40 acres worth of trees were used to build her. She was built to accommodate up to 700 sailors, soldiers, gunners, surgeons, and cooks.

In 1545, there were 140,000 men in the English forces on land and at sea. This was almost twice the population of London at the time.

The Mary Rose sank in the naval Battle of the Solent. The battle took place on the 18th and 19th of July 1545 during the Italian Wars between the fleets of Francis I of France and Henry VIII of England. The Solent lies between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.

The Cowdray engraving of the battle of the Solent, 1545. The painting was lost in a fire, but copies remained.

When the Mary Rose went down, she took over 500 men with her to the bottom of the sea. However, there may have been up to  700 men on board, of which fewer than 40 survived.  Most of the skeletons recovered by archaeologists were of young men in their twenties. Scientific tests have also shown that her crew was diverse, with sailors from Europe, including Spain and Italy, and others from further away, including North Africa.

Sinking of the Mary Rose at the Battle of Solent

The Mary Rose was probably carrying supplies for two weeks when she sank.  This was an enormous quantity of supplies and weight.  These included 1800 kg of beef, 900 kg of pork, 750 fish, 3350 kg of hard unsweetened biscuits, and 31,500 liters of beer.

The only confirmed eyewitness, an unknown Flemish sailor who escaped from the sinking vessel, claims that the Mary Rose had fired all of her guns on one side and was turning when her sails were caught in a strong gust of wind, pushing the still open gunports below the waterline. Her reason for sinking is still debated today.

The recovery of the Mary Rose is a feat of modern science and tenacity that is rather incredible and one that took decades.

The search for and discovery of the Mary Rose was a result of the dedication of one man, the late Alexander McKee. McKee initiated ‘Project Solent Ships’ to investigate wrecks in the Solent. His hope was to find the Mary Rose.

Using sonar, the team discovered a strange shape underneath the seabed. Between 1968 and 1971, a team of volunteer divers explored the area.

On the first of May 1971, diver Percy Ackland found three of the port frames of the Mary Rose.

There were 27,831 dives made to the Mary Rose during the modern excavation project, equating to 22,710 hours on the seabed.

A committee was set up to consider many different methods of raising the hull. They decided to use a purpose-built lifting frame that would be attached by wires to steel bolts passing through the hull at carefully selected points. These points were spread evenly across the section of the ship, mainly in the major structural beams.

For the first 12 years, the Mary Rose was sprayed with chilled water to prevent it from drying out while scientists conducted research into its long-term conservation.

The Mary Rose team treated the timbers with polyethylene glycol to replace the degraded timber cells, requiring spray application under 98% humidity. For 19 years, while spraying was ongoing, the ship was sealed within an insulated hotbox.

In 2013, when the Mary Rose Museum was opened in Portsmouth, the sprays were turned off, although the ship remained in an insulated hotbox as it dried. The drying process was informed by complex computational fluid dynamics to ensure that all elements of the ship received the same temperature and relative humidity, preventing variation in drying rates and, therefore, warping, shrinking, and cracking. Over three years, 100 tons of water was removed from the ship. In 2015, the drying was complete.

A Canon from the Mary Rose

Over 26,000 artifacts and pieces of timber were raised from the seabed.  As well as the remains of about half the crew members and a dog used as a ratter. These are all nicely displayed throughout the museum.

A Ludus Anglicorum set (a predecessor of modern backgammon) owned by the master carpenter.

Coventry England

 Coventry, United Kingdom, x
Nov 082023
 

November 7, 2023

I am here to visit an old friend, James.  While he lives in Wales, we have agreed to meet in Coventry so we can gather with other friends in the area.

The town of Coventry was bombed rather heavily during WWII and then suffered from the classic concept of modernization, also known as urban renewal.

And yet, there is much to wonder at, starting with the Coventry Cathedral.

The church was bombed on November 14th, 1940.

The tower, spire, and outer wall of the church survived the bombing, but the rest of this historic building was destroyed. After the war, the cathedral was not rebuilt on site but left in ruins as a testament to the futility of war. The surviving spire of St Michael’s is 245 feet high and is the tallest structure in the city.

Sculpture within the ruins includes:

Reconciliation (originally named Reunion) is a sculpture by Josefina de Vasconcellos. “The sculpture was originally conceived in the aftermath of the War. Europe was in shock; people were stunned. I read in a newspaper about a woman who crossed Europe on foot to find her husband, and I was so moved that I made the sculpture. Then I thought that it wasn’t only about the reunion of two people but hopefully a reunion of nations which had been fighting.”  In 1995, a copy of the sculpture was placed in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral and Hiroshima Peace Park in Japan to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Bishop Huyshe Wolcott Yeatman-Biggs died in 1922 and was the first Bishop of the revived See of Coventry when St. Michael’s became a cathedral in 1918.  His bronze tomb was the only thing within the cathedral to survive the blitz, although one of the bishop’s hands, which holds a small model of the cathedral, was severed. The repaired statue can be found close to where it was originally laid.

Choir of Survivors, by German artist Helmut Heinze.

The new cathedral sits adjacent to the old cathedral.

The modern building is a stunning piece of architecture that is both an homage to the original and a piece of brutalist architecture that, while standing alone in its beauty, is such a compliment to the bombed-out original Cathedral, designed by architect Basil Spence.  It was Basil Spence’s idea to keep the ruins symbolically intact next to the new building.

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Both old and new buildings are constructed from the same type of sandstone. The foundation stone of the new cathedral was laid by Queen Elizabeth II in 1956. The interior is notable for its giant tapestry of Christ and the multicolored, abstract design of the Baptistry window that floods the interior with color.

The “Charred Cross” was created in January after the Blitz, when Reverend Howard asked the cathedral’s stone mason, ‘Jock’ Forbes, to make an altar from the rubble and place behind it a cross made from two charred oak beams that had fallen from the roof.

Packwood House

Packwood House is a timber-framed Tudor manor house in Packwood on the Solihull border near Lapworth, Warwickshire.

The house began as a modest timber-framed farmhouse constructed for John Fetherston between 1556 and 1560. In 1904, the house was purchased by Birmingham industrialist Alfred Ash. It was then inherited by Graham Baron Ash (Baron in this case being a name, not a title) in 1925, who spent the following two decades creating a house of Tudor character.

In 1941, Ash donated the house and gardens to the National Trust in memory of his parents but continued to live in the house until 1947.

The Yew Garden contains over 100 trees and was laid out in the mid-17th century by John Fetherston. The clipped yews are supposed to represent “The Sermon on the Mount”. Twelve great yews are known as the “Apostles,” and the four big specimens in the middle are ‘The Evangelists’. A tight spiral path lined with box hedges climbs a hummock named “The Mount”. The single yew that crowns the summit is known as “The Master”. The smaller yew trees are called “The Multitude” and were planted in the 19th century to replace an orchard.

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Kenilworth Castle

The first castle on this spot was established in the 1120s by the royal chamberlain Geoffrey de Clinton.

In 1266, Simon de Montfort held Kenilworth against the king in a six-month siege – one of the longest in English medieval history.

In the 14th century, John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III, developed the castle into a palace, building its great hall and lavish apartments.

The castle was a favored residence of the Lancastrian kings in the later Middle Ages. Henry V built a retreat here at the far end of the lake.

In 1563, Elizabeth I granted the castle to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who transformed Kenilworth into a palace. He famously entertained the queen here for 19 days of festivities in 1575.

The expanse in front, where the Great Dane is romping,  is a medieval earthen dam.  Built in the 13th century, for 400 years, it held back one of the largest man-made water defenses in Britain, an enormous lake, or mere.

It is possible that during its history, the dam was used as a tiltyard where jousting tournaments took place.  King Edward I attended such an event here in 1279 accompanied by 100 knights and their ladies.

The castle’s fortifications were dismantled in 1650 after the English Civil War. Later, the ruins became famous thanks in part to Walter Scott’s 1821 novel Kenilworth, which romanticized the story of Robert Dudley, his wife Amy Robsart, and Elizabeth I.

Walking Around Coventry


The elephant animal appears on the city’s coat of arms and is thought to signify the city’s strength in medieval times.

The Coventry Council House

The Coventry Council House is faced with Runcorn stone and roofed in Cotswold stone. The rich display of heraldic carvings, mostly centered around the main entrance, includes the arms of many historical characters associated with Coventry’s history, from the time of Edward the Confessor until the 16th Century.

The full list, although not all captured in this photograph, includes Edward the Confessor; Henry II; Queen Isabella; Edward III; Edward, the Black Prince; Richard ll; Henry VI; Queen Margaret; Queen Elizabeth l; Mary, Queen of Scots; James l; the Earls of Chester, Cornwall, and Northampton; the Dukes of Norfolk and Hereford; Neville, Earl of Warwick; Sir William Dugdale; Thomas Sharp; John Hales; Sir Thomas White; the Botoners and Swillingtons; Thomas Wheatley; Thomas Bond; William Ford; Dr. Philemon Holland; the Davenports: the Hopkins and Jesson families; Sir Skears Rew; the Harringtons of Coombe Abbey; the Berkeleys of Caludon Castle; the City of London; and the See (bishopric) of Lichfield and Coventry.

Coventry is a college town, and what remains of its history is small but also within a 5-minute walk of the train station and certainly worth a quick jump off the train to explore.  The other items in this post definitely require an automobile but are all doable within half of a day.