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Southampton 2023 - Back to the dockyard once more (Day 6)

 

We spent most of the start of the week unsure what to do on the Thursday. However, after going to the Historic Dockyard on Wednesday we decided to head to the other museums that we were able to visit on our ticket: the Submarine Museum and Explosion Museum of Naval Firepower.

We started off at Explosion, which is a museum situated at Priddy’s Hard in Gosport, a location that used to be a Naval armaments depot. We learnt all about what used to go on at Priddy’s Hard and the various armoury used in the Royal Navy over the years. The museum had also just opened a new gallery telling the story of the coastal hunters in the First and Second World Wars, so we explored this before heading off to our next stop.

We tried to time out visit to the Submarine Museum so we could take a quick trip back over to the Historic Dockyard via the ferry (which is included in the price of the dockyard ticket). We decided to go back over first, and had a quick wander round the HMS Victory conservation exhibition which told us all about the work that was going into conserving the ship, before heading out onto the viewing platform that is in the HMS Victory museum to get a closer look at HMS Queen Elizabeth. I also persuaded Nicole to part with some money and buy a ship’s badge to hang on the wall at home. After much deliberation, she decided on the HMS Queen Elizabeth badge which now hangs proudly in our hallway.




We headed back over on the ferry and started out by going on board HMS Alliance, Britain’s only remaining Second World War submarine. This allows you to get a glimpse of what life is like on a submarine. Let’s just say, the word ‘cosy’ is one of the first that comes to mind! After exploring HMS Alliance, we had a chance to look round the museum itself which further built on what we had already seen and allowed us to further learn about the incredible life of a submariner. By this point, I was a bit hot and bothered, and had seen enough ships for the week (much to Nicole’s dismay) so we made our way back to chill for the evening.

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