Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

Sunday 18 February 1996. We have strolled (increasingly slowly as our legs ice up...) from Southsea Promenade to the gates of the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

As we approach we can see the grand sight of HMS Warrior. Dating from 1861, she was the first iron-clad warship. We'll have a look around her in due course but just to whet your appetites I can tell you that we met up with the second and third people of the week totally devoid of any common sense whilst we were onboard her...

The Portsmouth Semaphore was the last in a line of tall buildings with wavy masts stretching from London to Portsmouth, allowing messages to be sent from the Admiralty to the Naval base considerably faster than a speeding horseman. The semaphore had been in the centre of Portsmouth, but was moved here in 1833 when the Admiralty residence moved into the dockyard. To either side were the Rigging House and Sail Loft of 1778 and to hold the semaphore tower, both buildings were joined by an archway. Only 14 years later, in 1847, the wonders of electricity brought the telegraph into the dockyard, rendering the semaphore obsolete. The tower burned down in 1913 and was rebuilt as a replica, opening again in 1930. The buildings to either side are not perfect replicas - the one on the right is not joined to the tower any more and they were originally symmetrical in design and number of storeys.

The star attraction has to be HMS Victory. She is, in fact, the sixth ship of the Royal Navy to be named Victory, the first having been launched in 1569 and which served in the battle against the Spanish Armada.

It's a wonder that she still exists. Starved of funds for maintenance after the Battle of Trafalgar, she was saved only because of public outcry every time the Admiralty announced she would be broken up. They saved her, but did little to arrest rot and damage. In fact it would be 2005 before she was returned to the condition she had enjoyed at the start of the Battle of Trafalgar.

Gingerbread. That's the term for the decorative woodwork of the sterns of most ships of the line. Victory originally had open balconies, but these were removed during reconstruction work started in 1800 during which so many defects were discovered that the cost of repairs rocketed from an original estimate of £23,500 to £70,933 (pounds sterling). During this work the number of guns she carried was increased from 100 to 104.

Also she was repainted in the colours we now see and take for granted. She had been red. After Trafalgar many warships adopted these same colours, dark yellow and black stripes but with black gunports - a chequered effect which came to be known as Nelson's Chequer.

The series of steps up to the doorway in the side of the ship is known as the tumblehome. Probably because after climbing it, particularly in a lively sea, that's exactly what you would do with some relief! You can visit Victory in a guided tour, but not with freedom to wander about on your own. We did the tour, visiting the placque on the deck where Nelson fell, shot through the shoulder by a French sniper in the rigging of the ship alongside. The bullet passed through a lung and broke his spine, where it lodged. He died three hours later in the Orlop of the ship, now the nearest thing to a shrine that any Navy ship possesses.

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The Edinburgh Parthenon

Wednesday 26 April 2006. I'm in Edinburgh to do some training at Edinburgh University. There were many such visits to Edinburgh, sometimes to train university staff and sometimes to train staff from local colleges, these latter events being arranged by the local JISC Regional Support Centre.

On this occasion I climbed the hill from the eastern end of Princes Street up to the Parthenon. Not quite with the same weight of time behind it as the one in Athens, or even with the same purpose in mind, it never-the-less is an imposing sight from below. There was, perhaps, a brief thought along the lines of "where's the rest of it?", but hey... The tower on the right is Nelson's Monument. It supports a naval semaphore. A string of these were built within sight of each other originating at the Admiralty in London and in emergencies a message could be sent to the far end of the country by waving the arms of the semaphore. Given how many days it would have taken to travel by ship or overland in those days of wooden fighting ships, the semaphore could be used to gain intelligence of enemy shipping movements. Or a dispatch rider could send, "Expect me on Thursday - have the kettle on..."

In the case of this particular tower, it would be clearly visible by telescope from any Naval shipping moored in the Firth of Forth below me to the north. Together the Paqrthenon and Nelson's Monument make up the National Monument of Scotland, a memorial to the Napoleonic Wars.

A telescopic view from the same spot brings the Firth of Forth a bit closer. The Royal Yacht Britannia is moored there and open to visitors since its retirement as a conveyance for the Queen.

Edinburgh is somewhat hilly. In fact it is bewilderingly laid out with fairly steep roads suddenly crossing deep ravines. One such is Low Calton, over which this archway was built to take the Great London Road across the fifty foot (15m) deep ravine. It was opened during the visit of Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg, later King Leopold I, the first king of the Belgians and the uncle of Prince Albert, the consort to Queen Victoria.

One of the buildings of the Edinburgh University.

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