Historic Ships in Britain

Certainly, Britain was once a great seafaring nation and that empire was sustained by a dominant navy and a large merchant fleet. The beginnings of the British navy as an international force go back to Henry VIII and the Mary Rose, confirmed by the defeat of the Spanish Armada under his daughter Elizabeth I.

An island nation, Britain has long been reliant on oceanic trade. Many of the ships that powered that trade and the naval ships that protected it and projected the country’s power overseas have been preserved in various ports and docks around the nation.

See a list of vintage, historical ships in Britain.

HMS Belfast

HMS Belfast on the River Thames in London is a preserved Royal Navy warship near Tower Bridge. The historic ship is part of the Imperial War Museum which has three facilities in London (Imperial War Museum London, HMS Belfast and the Churchill War Rooms), one at Duxford in Cambridgeshire and the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester.

HMS Belfast is a cruiser that was launched from the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast (home of the Titanic) in 1938. The warship saw action in World War II in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters as well as the Korean War in the 1950’s.

Due to a private initiative by the HMS Belfast Trust the ship was saved from the wrecker and was opened to the public in 1971, becoming part of the Imperial War Museum in 1978.

Cutty Sark

The Cutty Sark is also on The Thames in London in dry dock in Greenwich.

The Cutty Sark was one of the fastest clippers in the world when it was launched in 1869 once making the trip from China carrying tea in just 107 days and from Australia, transporting wool, in a mere 83 days.

After a long and varied career, the vessel was placed in dry dock in Greenwich in 1954.

Dazzle Ships

The Dazzle ships in Liverpool were part of a project by the Imperial War Museum in conjunction with the Liverpool Biennial and Tate Liverpool. A pair of ships were painted by artists to commemorate dazzle, an unusual and experimental type of naval camouflage used primarily during World War I.

The first was the Edmund Gardner, a pilot cutter that operated out of Liverpool since 1953. It is on display in a dry dock in front of the Liverpool Maritime Museum, and Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez painted the ship’s exterior in vivid green, orange, red and black stripes and titled the work "Induction Chromatique a Double Frequence".

The other ship painted was the Snowdrop, a working Mersey ferry. Peter Blake, a pop artist known for designing the cover of the Beatles Sgt. Peppers album titled his design "Everybody Razzle Dazzle" which featured a wider range of shapes and colors.

SS Great Britain

The SS Great Britain has been called "The World’s First Great Ocean Liner". Conceived by the great Victorian engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the revolutionary combination of a screw propeller, an iron hull, and a massive 1000-horsepower steam engine revolutionized international travel.

So ground-breaking was the design that in 1843 when the SS Great Britain was launched, she was called "the greatest experiment since the Creation".

Today, visitors can view the SS Great Britain in the dry dock in Bristol where she was built between 1839 and 1843. Views extend below the water line. The visionary Brunel understood that a ship made of wrought iron could be bigger and stronger than one made of wood.

Golden Hinde

The Golden Hind was an English galleon known mostly for its circumnavigation of the globe from 1577 to 1580 captained by Sir Francis Drake.

The ship was originally named Pelican, but Drake renamed the ship in 1578 after the crest of his patron Sir Christopher Halton which featured a golden hind (deer). After returning the ship remained on exhibit in Deptford but by 1650 had begun to rot and was broken up.

Since 1996, a full-size replica, the Golden Hinde, has been moored at St. Mary Overie Dock in Southwark, London, and is open to the public. She was constructed between 1970 and 1973 and was built using traditional methods.

The vessel is fully seaworthy and in fact, has sailed more than 140,000 miles including a complete circumnavigation of the globe. While visiting Japan it was used in the filming of the famous TV miniseries "Shogun."

Mary Rose

The Mary Rose and her sister ship, Peter Pomegranate, were the pride of Henry VIII’s navy. A tall carrack with large and heavy guns, the ship sunk in The Solent during an engagement with the French navy in 1545.

She was raised from the sea in a complex and expensive operation in 1982. She is now on display in the Mary Rose Museum in her home port of Portsmouth at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and is a major tourist attraction.

The museum displays a treasure trove of Tudor period artefacts including cannon, chamber pots, clothing, combs, cooking utensils, furniture, games, medical equipment, navigational instruments, rigging, rosaries, swords, tools, and even musical instruments. Altogether around 19,000 pieces were recovered with the wreck.

Turbinia

Turbinia is on display at the Discovery Museum in Newcastle. It was the fastest ship in the world at the turn of the twentieth century.

The vessel was designed in 1894 by the local Tyneside engineer Sir Charles Parsons and was the first ship to be powered by steam turbines.

HMS Victory

HMS Victory is one of Britain’s most famous battleships launched in 1765. Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar, the ship carried 104 guns and had a displacement of 3,500 tons. She was in active service until 1824.

The vessel is now in dry dock at Portsmouth Harbour and is part of The National Museum of the Royal Navy.

A 4.7 metre long, 1:30 scaled-down version of The Victory by British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare is now on permanent display outside the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, after the work was first displayed on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. Ship in a Bottle explores colonialism, post-colonialism, race and class and its hallmark is the London-born artist’s use of brightly-coloured "African" fabrics.

HMS Warrior

The HMS Warrior is a steam-powered armoured frigate launched in 1860. The vessel was one of the first armour-plated, iron-hulled warships and was equipped with 40 guns. However, it was largely obsolete only a decade later and became a training ship for the Royal Navy. The ship has been on display in Portsmouth since 1987.

PS Waverley

The PS Waverley is claimed to be the last seagoing paddle steamer in the world. Built on the Clyde in Glasgow and launched in 1947, she initially saw service cruising the Scottish lochs. Now when she is not cruising at various locations around the UK she is berthed outside the Glasgow Science Center.

The TS Queen Mary was also built locally and launched in 1933. She carried passengers up the west coast of Scotland and is currently being converted into a museum ship.

The Titanic

The Titanic is probably more famous globally than HMS Victory but as everyone knows lies at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Titanic Quarter in Belfast is a waterfront redevelopment of part of the once derelict Harland & Wolff shipyards on Queen’s Island.

The gigantic cranes Samson and Goliath dominate the area and tower above the iconic Titanic Belfast (www.titanicbelfast.com), which opened 100 years after the launch of the Titanic.

Designed by architect Eric Kuhne, the building reflects the ship-building heritage of the city and is supposed to resemble the prows of ships, though locals have nicknamed it the "Iceberg."

The Titanic Belfast presents the construction, sinking and aftermath of Belfast’s and the world’s most famous ship in nine interactive galleries.

Also in the Titanic Quarter are the original slipways used in the construction of the Titanic and her sister ship, Olympic.

The U-534 is a German submarine on display at U-boat Story at Woodside Ferry Terminal in Birkenhead near Liverpool. The U-boat was sunk by the RAF in May 1945 off the Danish coast. 49 submariners of the crew of 53 managed to escape alive. The vessel was salvaged in 1993 as there were rumours of Nazi gold aboard the ship as she was sailing after a ceasefire had been declared. The vessel was transported in a complex operation from its initial display site at at Birkenhead Docks to its present location. It is one of only four intact U-boats on display in the world.

The Matthew

The Matthew in Bristol Harbour is a replica of the vessel that John Cabot sailed to Newfoundland in 1497. The modern Matthew was built between 1994 and 1996. The ship is often seen on trips around the harbour and when moored entry is free. Little is known about Cabot himself, an Italian merchant from Genoa. After his voyage of 1497 he returned again in 1498 but after that the trail goes cold. Did he perish at sea or return safely to England? Research continues.

HQS Wellington

HQS Wellington is the former Royal Navy sloop HMS Wellington permanently moored on the River Thames at Victoria Embankment, Temple Pier in central London. The vessel is now the HQ (headquarters) ship of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners. The ship saw action during World War II protecting convoys in the North Atlantic. She was launched at Devonport in 1934 and served in China and New Zealand before the war.

RSS Discovery

On display outside the V&A Dundee is the RSS Discovery which was built in the town. RRS Discovery was the last traditional wooden three-masted ship to be built in Britain. Designed for Antarctic research and with a thick wooden hull measuring 60 cm in places, RRS Discovery was launched as a Royal Research Ship in 1901. The hull was designed to prevent crushing and provide insulation.

The ship’s first mission took Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton to the Antarctic. Later the ship served as a cargo vessel for the Hudson’s Bay Company and was also used to transport supplies during World War I. She was transported from London where she had been since the 1930s to Dundee in 1986.