HM Naval Base Portsmouth
His Majesty’s Naval Base Portsmouth is one of the three operating bases of the Royal Navy, on the eastern shore of Portsmouth Harbour. Home to around two-thirds of the navy’s surface fleet, including the aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, it has been at the heart of British naval power for more than five centuries.
History
For centuries the base was known as HM Dockyard Portsmouth, a state-owned yard for building, repairing and supplying warships, and for a time it was the largest industrial site in the world. The world’s first dry dock was built here for Henry VII in 1495, and in the 19th century the dockyard pioneered steam power and mass production; Marc Brunel’s block mills of 1803 are among the earliest examples of machine-tool production. From the 1970s the name Naval Base came into use, and the dockyard’s industrial work was reduced in 1984 and later privatised.
Visiting
The working base is closed to the public, but part of the old dockyard is now Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, home to Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory, the Victorian ironclad HMS Warrior, the Mary Rose museum and the National Museum of the Royal Navy. Harbour tours give views of the modern warships alongside.
About island harbours & ferry ports
All harbours & ferry ports →For every island, the harbour is the front door. This is where the ferry comes in, where fishing boats land their catch and where visitors take their first steps ashore. Here you will find the harbours and ferry ports of the islands of Britain and Ireland, from busy terminals such as Stornoway and Kirkwall to…
