HMNB Portsmouth

First-rate ship of the line

• HMS Victory

Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers

• HMS Queen Elizabeth
• HMS Prince of Wales

Type 45 destroyers

• HMS Daring – completing refit, scheduled to return to the fleet in 2024 ^[12]
• HMS Dauntless
• HMS Diamond
• HMS Dragon – in refit, scheduled to return to the fleet by end 2024 ^[13]
• HMS Defender – entered refit in 2023, scheduled for major upgrade work until 2026 ^[14]
• HMS Duncan

Type 23 frigates

• HMS Lancaster (Currently forward deployed to Bahrain for 3 years from 2022)
• HMS Iron Duke (completed LIFEX refit in 2023)

In changes to base porting arrangements announced in November 2017, HM Ships Westminster, Richmond, Kent and St Albans were to move to the HMNB Devonport by 2023; HM Ship HMS Argyll moved in the opposite direction. HMS Monmouth and HMS Montrose were also to move to Portsmouth. However, Monmouth retired in 2021, Montrose decommissioned in 2023 and Argyll and Westminster followed in 2024. Richmond became a Devonport ship on completion of her refit. St Albans moved to Devonport in July 2019 in preparation for her major refit. ^[15]

Hunt-class mine countermeasures vessels

• HMS Ledbury
• HMS Cattistock
• HMS Brocklesby
• HMS Middleton – assigned to 9 Mine Countermeasures Squadron operating from HMS Jufair in Bahrain ^[16]
• HMS Chiddingfold – assigned to 9 Mine Countermeasures Squadron operating from HMS Jufair
• HMS Hurworth

River-class patrol vessels

• HMS Tyne – Fishery protection vessel
• HMS Severn – Fishery protection vessel
• HMS Mersey – Fishery protection vessel
• HMS Forth ^[17] – forward deployed to the Falklands as guard ship since 2019
• HMS Medway – forward deployed to the Caribbean since 2020
• HMS Trent – forward deployed from Gibraltar since 2021 ^[18]
• HMS Tamar – forward deployed to the Indo-Pacific region since 2021, with primary logistics hub at the British Defence Singapore Support Unit in Singapore ^[19]
• HMS Spey – forward deployed to the Indo-Pacific region since 2021, with primary logistics hub at the British Defence Singapore Support Unit in Singapore ^[19]

Cutlass-class patrol vessels

• HMS Cutlass – Gibraltar Squadron ^[11]
• HMS Dagger – Gibraltar Squadron ^[11]

Archer-class patrol vessels

• HMS Blazer – Southampton Universities Royal Naval Unit
• HMS Exploit – Birmingham Universities Royal Naval Unit
• HMS Puncher – London Universities Royal Naval Unit
• HMS Ranger – Sussex Universities Royal Naval Unit
• HMS Smiter – Oxford Universities Royal Naval Unit

Experimental vessel

• XV Patrick Blackett (since 2022) – experimental vessel in RN service ^[20]

Defence Dive School/Fleet Diving Unit Portsmouth

• 3× Sea-class 15 m diving support boats ^{[21] [22]}

Dummer's pioneering engineering works

As France began to pose more of a military threat to England, the strategic importance of Portsmouth grew. In 1689, Parliament ordered a new dry dock to be built there, large enough to accommodate the latest first-rate and second-rate ships of the line (which were too big for the existing docks). Work began in 1691; as with all subsequent extensions to the dockyard, the new works were built on reclaimed land (on what had been mud flats, to north of the old double dock) and the civil engineering involved was on an unprecedented scale. ^[37]

The work was entrusted to Edmund Dummer, naval engineer and surveyor to the Navy Board. His new dry dock (the "Great Stone Dock" as it was called) was built to a pioneering new design, using brick and stone rather than wood and with an increased number of 'altars' or steps (the stepped sides allowed shorter timbers to be used for shoring and made it much easier for shipwrights to reach the underside of vessels needing repair). Extensively rebuilt in 1769, the Great Stone Dock is now known as No.5 dock. ^[37]

Along with the new dock, Dummer proposed that two wet docks (non-tidal basins) be built: the first ("Lower") Wet Dock was entered directly from the harbour and provided access to the Great Stone Dock; since much expanded, it remains in place (now known as "No. 1 Basin"). The second ("Upper") Wet Dock was entered by way of a channel. To empty the dry dock, Dummer designed a unique system which used water from the Upper Wet Dock to drive a water-wheel on the ebb tide, which in turn powered a set of pumps. (At high tide, an auxiliary set of pumps was used, powered by a horse gin.) ^[3]

In 1699 Dummer adapted the channel leading to the Upper Wet Dock, enabling it to be closed off at each end by a set of gates, thus forming a second dry dock (called the "North Stone Dock" after it was rebuilt with stone altars in 1737, and known today as No 6 dock). Severed from the harbour, the Upper Wet Dock became a reservoir into which water from various nearby dry docks could be drained; it was vaulted and covered over at the end of the eighteenth century, but still exists today underground. ^[3] By 1700 a shipbuilding slip had been constructed off the (Lower) Wet Dock, parallel with the dry dock (roughly where No 4 dry dock is today). ^[38]

The 'Great Rebuilding'

The second half of the eighteenth century was a key period in the development of Portsmouth (and indeed of the other Royal Dockyards). A substantial planned programme of expansion and modernisation was undertaken from 1761 onwards, driven (as would be future periods of expansion) by increases both in the size of individual ships and in the overall size of the fleet. In the 1760s the Lower Wet Dock (by then known as the Great Basin) was deepened, the Great Stone Dock was rebuilt and a new dry dock (known today as No 4 dock) was built alongside it over a five-year period from 1767. During 1771–76 the former Upper Wet Dock was reconfigured to serve as a reservoir into which water from the dry docks could be drained by way of culverts (enabling ships to be dry docked much more speedily). From 1789 work was begun on replacing the old wooden South Dock with a modern stone dry dock (known today as No 1 dock, it currently accommodates the museum ship HMS M33). ^[43]

North of the reservoir a channel was dug leading to a new boat basin, beyond which several shipbuilding slips were constructed on reclaimed land at what became known as the North Corner of the dockyard. ^[6] The rest of the reclaimed land was given over to storage space for timber with saw pits and seasoning sheds alongside, as shown in the dockyard model of 1774. ^[44]

Several of Portsmouth Dockyard's most notable historic buildings date from this period, with several older wooden structures being replaced in brick on a larger scale. The three great storehouses (Nos 9, 10 & 11) ^{[45] [46] [47]} were built between 1764 and 1785 on a wharf, alongside a deep canal (or camber) which allowed transport and merchant vessels to moor and load or unload goods; the camber was rebuilt in Portland stone between 1773 and 1785. ^[34] On the other side of the camber, on newly reclaimed land, two more sizeable brick storehouses were built to serve as a sail loft and a rigging store; the reclaimed land was later named Watering Island after a fresh water supply was provided for ships mooring alongside. ^[3]

The Great Ropehouse, a double ropery over 1,000 ft (300 m) in length, dates from the same period. It is, however, the sixth ropehouse (since 1665) to have stood on the site. Both its immediate predecessors were destroyed by fire (in 1760 and 1770) and the current building was itself gutted by fire in 1776 as the result of an arson attack. ^[48] It was called a 'double' ropery because the spinning and laying stages took place in the same building (on different floors) rather than on two separate sites. Other buildings associated with ropemaking (including hemp houses, a hatchelling house, tarring house and storehouses) were laid out alongside and parallel to the ropehouse; they largely date from the same period. ^[6]

Later, in 1784, a large new house was built for the Dockyard Commissioner. ^[49] Unusually for the time it was designed by a civilian architect (Samuel Wyatt, with Thomas Telford as clerk-of-works); most other dockyard buildings were designed in-house. The dockyard chapel, built eighty years earlier, was demolished to make way for the new Commissioner's house and a new chapel (St Ann's Church) was built nearby. ^[50] At the same time a set of offices for the senior officers of the yard was built (in place of an earlier office block), overlooking the docks and basin; it continues to provide office space to this day. ^[51]

After the old Commissioner's House had been demolished, four identical quadrangular buildings were built, flanking the timber ground east of the Basin; as well as providing storage space, they accommodated workshops for a variety of trades, including joiners, wheelwrights, wood-carvers, capstan-makers and various other craftsmen. ^[52] A new smithery was also built nearby, immediately to the north (the latest in a succession of smiths' shops to have been built on the site); dating from 1791, it was mainly occupied with anchor making. Ten years later this process was vividly described: "The immense masses of the anchors, the ponderous hammers, the vast size of the bellows, the roaring of the flaming furnaces, the reverberations of the falling cumbrous hammers, and the fiery pieces of metal flying in all directions, are truly awful, grand and picturesque". ^[53]

Samuel Bentham and industrial revolution

In 1796 Samuel Bentham was appointed Inspector General of Naval Works by the Admiralty with the brief of modernising the Royal Dockyards. As such, he took on responsibility for overseeing the continued rebuilding at Portsmouth and initiated further key engineering works. A prolific inventor and precision engineer, Bentham's initiatives at Portsmouth ranged from instituting new management principles in the manufacturing departments to developing the first successful steam-powered bucket dredger, which began work in the harbour in 1802. ^[34]

The 1761 rebuilding plan had envisaged the old wooden double dock being refurbished, but Bentham instead proposed expanding the Basin (building over the double dock in the process) and adding a further pair of single docks built entirely of stone (unlike previous 'stone docks' which had had timber floors). The proposal was accepted; the new docks (now known as Nos 2 and 3 docks) were completed in 1802-3 and are still in place today (accommodating HMS Victory and the Mary Rose respectively). ^[54] While constructing a new entrance to the Basin, Bentham introduced the innovation of an inverted masonry arch to tie together the walls on either side. He went on to use the same principle in constructing the new dry docks attached to the basin; it soon became standard for dock construction around the world. In constructing the docks and basin he made pioneering use of Smeaton's waterproof cement. He also designed a "ship caisson" to close off the entrance to the basin (another innovation which soon became a standard design). ^[55]

To deal with the increasing number of docks, Bentham in 1797 proposed replacing one of the horse pumps above the reservoir with a steam engine. His plan was that the engine should be used not only to drain the reservoir (by night) but also to drive a sawmill and woodworking machinery (during the day); he also envisaged linking it to a freshwater well, to enable water to be pumped through a network of pipes to various parts of the dockyard. A table engine, designed by Bentham's staff chemist James Sadler, was installed in 1799; it represented the first use of steam power in a Royal Naval Yard. By 1800 a second steam engine (a Boulton & Watt beam engine) was being installed alongside the first. Meanwhile, Bentham designed and built a series of subterranean vaulted chambers over the reservoir, upon which he erected a pair of parallel three-storey workshops to contain reciprocating and circular saws, planning machines and morticing machines, built to his own designs, to be driven by the two engines (which were accommodated together with their boilers in the south workshop). Tanks installed on the upper floor provided a head of water for Bentham's aforementioned dockyard-wide pipe network, providing both salt water for firefighting and fresh water for various uses (including, for the first time, provision of drinking water to ships on the wharves) sourced from a newly sunk 274 ft well. ^[35]

Between the two Wood Mills buildings a single-storey workshop was built in 1802 to accommodate what soon came to be recognised as the world's first steam-powered factory for mass production: Portsmouth Block Mills. ^[8] Marc Brunel, father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, famously designed the machines, which manufactured ships' pulley blocks through a total of fifteen separate stages of production. Having been presented with Brunel's designs, which would be built by Henry Maudslay, Bentham incorporated them into his woodworking complex and linked them to the engines by way of line shafts. ^[56]

At the same time as building his Wood Mills, Bentham, with his deputy Simon Goodrich, was constructing a Metal Mills complex a little to the north-east. Alongside a smithery were a copper-smelting furnace and refinery, and a steam engine which drove a rolling mill and tilt hammers. Begun in 1801, these facilities were for recycling the copper sheathing of ships' hulls. In 1804 the works were extended to accommodate machinery for the rolling of iron to make bars and bolts. A millwrights' shop was also established nearby. The Wood Mills, Block Mills, Metal Mills and Millwrights' department were all placed under Goodrich's supervision as Mechanist to the Royal Navy. ^[57]

Victorian dockyard expansion

The adoption of steam propulsion for warships led to large-scale changes in the Royal Dockyards, which had been built in the age of sail. The Navy's first 'steam factory' was built at Woolwich in 1839; but it soon became clear that the site was far too small to cope with this revolutionary change in ship building and maintenance. ^[60]

Therefore, in 1843, work began in Portsmouth on further reclamation of land to the north of the then Dockyard to create a new 7-acre basin (known today as No 2 Basin) with a sizeable factory alongside for manufacturing marine steam engines. The Steam Factory, on the western edge of the basin, housed a series of workshops: for construction and repair of boilers, for punching and shearing and for heavy turning; there was also an erecting shop for assembling the finished engines. ^[61] The upper floor housed pattern shops, fitting shops and other light engineering workshops. Line shafts throughout were powered by an 80hp steam engine accommodated to the rear. A new Brass and Iron Foundry was also built soon afterwards, on the southern edge of the basin, ^[62] and in 1852 the Great Steam Smithery was opened alongside the Steam Factory (where Bentham's Metal Mills had formerly stood), containing a pair of steam hammers designed by James Nasmyth. ^[63] The infrastructure and buildings were designed by a group of Royal Engineer officers, overseen by Captains Sir William Denison and Henry James. ^[35] (The new steam basin was built over what had been the boat pond and boat houses; so in 1845 a new facility (No 6 Boathouse) was built alongside the mast pond, to the south, which was converted into a boat pond.) ^[6]

Three new dry docks were constructed over the next 20 years, opening off the new basin, and another was built on reclaimed land west of the basin, immediately north of the shipbuilding slips. The slips were now five in number, with Nos. 3–5 being covered by interlinking metal roofs (believed to have comprised the widest iron span in Britain when built in 1845). ^[6]

Developments in shipbuilding technology, however, led to several of the new amenities having to be rebuilt and expanded (almost as soon as they were finished). ^[3] A much larger Iron Foundry was opened in 1861, immediately to the east of its predecessor; it was further expanded in the following decade. ^[64] In 1867 a very large Armour Plate Workshop was opened, filling the space between the new North and South dry docks on the eastern side of the basin. ^[35]

In 1860 policing of the dockyard was also transferred to the new No. 2 Division of the Metropolitan Police, a role it fulfilled until 1933. ^[65]

The 'Great Extension'

Technological change affected not only ships' means of propulsion, but the materials from which they were built. By 1860 wooden warships, vulnerable as they were to modern armaments, had been rendered largely obsolescent. The changeover to metal hulls not only required new building techniques, but also heralded a dramatic and ongoing increase in the potential size of new vessels. The Dockyards found themselves having to expand in kind. At Portsmouth, plans were drawn up in the late 1850s for further land reclamation north and east of the new Steam Basin, and from 1867 work was begun on a complex of three new interconnected basins, each of 14–22 acres. Each basin served a different purpose: ships would proceed from the repairing basin, to the rigging basin, to the fitting-out basin, and exit from there into a new tidal basin, ready to take on fuel alongside the sizeable coaling wharf there. ^[66]

Three dry docks were also constructed as part of the plan, as well as parallel pair of sizeable locks for entry into the basin complex; the contemporary pumping station which stands nearby not only served to drain these docks and locks, but also delivered compressed air to power equipment around the edges of the basins: ^[67] five cranes, seven caissons and forty capstans were run on compressed air from the pump house. ^[35]

The "Great Extension" of Portsmouth Dockyard was largely completed by 1881. ^[3] Alongside the new Basins new buildings were erected, on a huge scale, to accommodate new manufacturing and construction processes. These included a gun-mounting workshop (built alongside the pumping station in 1881) which produced gun turrets, and a torpedo workshop (built to the east of No 12 dock in 1886). ^[35]

Before the end of the century, it was recognised that there would have to be still further expansion across all the Royal Dockyards in order to keep pace with the increasing likely size of future naval vessels. At Portsmouth two more dry docks, Nos 14 & 15, were built alongside the Repairing Basin in 1896; (within ten years these, together with the adjacent docks 12 & 13, had to be extended, and by the start of World War I Dock No 14 was over 720 ft in length). ^[68]

The dockyard railway

In 1843 construction began on a railway system within the dockyard. In 1846 this was connected to Portsmouth Town railway station via what became known as the Admiralty Line. By 1952 there was over 27 miles of track within the dockyard. ^[69] Its use declined in the 1970s: the link to the mainline was closed in 1977 and locomotives ceased operating within the yard the following year. ^[6]

In 1876 a railway station was built on what became known as South Railway Jetty on Watering Island (west of the Semaphore Tower). It was served by a separate branch line which crossed the South Camber by way of a swing bridge and continued on a viaduct over the foreshore, joining the main line just east of Portsmouth Harbour railway station. ^[70]

A small railway station and ornamental cast-iron shelter served in particular the needs of Queen Victoria and her family, who would often transfer from yacht to train at this location; this line soon became the main arrival/departure route for personnel. ^[71] The swing bridge and viaduct were damaged in the wartime blitz and subsequently dismantled in 1946. The Royal Naval Railway Shelter has recently been moved to the other side of the island and restored. ^[6]

Dreadnoughts

The first modern battleship, Dreadnought, was built in 1905–06, taking one day more than a year. Further dreadnoughts followed—Bellerophon in 1907, St. Vincent in 1908, Orion in 1910, King George V in 1911, Iron Duke in 1912 and Queen Elizabeth in 1913. ^[74]

Electrification came to the Yard with the opening of a 9,800 kW power station in 1906. At this time the 1846 Steam Factory still served as the dockyard's main heavy engineering complex, but the following year a very large New Steam Factory (to the east of No 12 dock) was opened. Equipped for the repair and maintenance of steam turbine propulsion units, it was soon put to the task of fitting out dreadnoughts. Nearby a new boiler shop had recently been built (south of No 13 dock), together with a new sawmill. Dry-docking provision was further increased in 1912 through the addition of an Admiralty Floating Dock, large enough to accommodate a dreadnought, which was moored just off Fountain Lake Jetty. ^[35]

The largest Naval ships were now too large for the interlocking basins, so to guarantee access to the new dry docks the intervening walls between the basins were removed to create a single large non-tidal body of water (No 3 Basin), with a pair of 850 ft entrance locks being built at the same time. These (C & D locks) were operational from 1914, and they, together with the enlarged basin and docks, have remained in use, largely unaltered, ever since. ^[3] On 8 April 1913, Portsmouth Dockyard opened the first of two new large 850 ft long drydock locks directly connecting Portsmouth Harbour to No.3 Basin, the first named 'C' Lock. A year later, 'D' Lock was opened in April 1914. ^[75]

First World War

The largest vessel launched at Portsmouth during World War I was the 27,500-ton battleship Royal Sovereign in 1915. The only other launchings during the war were the submarines J1 and J2 in 1915, and K1, K2 and K5 in 1916. Some 1,200 vessels, however, underwent a refit at Portsmouth during the course of the War, and over the same period 1,658 ships were either hauled up the slipways or placed in dry-dock for repairs. ^[76]

For the duration of the war significant numbers of women were employed in the yard, including in the erstwhile male domains of the Engineering Department, the Electrical Department and the Constructive Department. By the end of the war a total of 2,122 women were employed; 280 worked as clerks, the rest were manual workers. ^[35]

Inter-war years

The period after the war was inevitably a time of contraction at the Dockyard, and there were many redundancies. In accordance with the Government's Ten Year Rule the Dockyard worked over the next decade and a half with a presumption of enduring peace rather than future conflict. ^[78]

The majority of warships launched at Portsmouth following the end of the War were cruisers—Effingham in 1921, Suffolk in 1926, London in 1927, Dorsetshire in 1929, Neptune in 1933, and Amphion and Aurora in 1934. There were also four destroyers—Comet and her sister Crusader in 1931, and the flotilla leaders Duncan in 1932 and Exmouth in 1934. The only other vessels launched between the wars were the mining tenders Nightingale in 1931 and Skylark in 1932. ^[79]

In 1922 HMS Victory was brought into No 2 Dry Dock (where she remains to this day). She was opened to the public on 17 July 1928, and ten years later a museum building (the Victory Gallery) was opened nearby to house works of art and other items related to the ship (including W L Wyllie's Panorama of the Battle of Trafalgar). ^[80]

New Dockyard facilities in this period included a Steel Foundry, built in 1926, and the Central Metallurgical Laboratory, established ten years later. The "Semaphore Tower" was opened in 1930, a facsimile of its namesake (dating from 1810–24) which had been destroyed in a fire in 1913. The arch beneath incorporates the Lion Gate, once part of the 18th-century fortifications. ^[81] The original Semaphore Tower had been erected between a sizeable pair of buildings: the Rigging Store and Sail Loft (both of 1784), which perished in the same fire; in the end only one of the pair was rebuilt, as a five-storey office block. ^[6] In 1937 work began on a new boathouse (No 4 Boathouse), which replaced the last working masthouse of the yard (in place there since c.1700). Construction was halted by the start of the Second World War, and the southern half of the new building was never completed; ^[35] during the war it was fully occupied with building landing craft, small boats and midget submarines. ^[6]

Second World War

The destroyer flotillas (the capital ships having been evacuated to Scapa Flow), were essential to the defence of the English Channel, particularly during Operation Dynamo (the Dunkirk evacuation) and against any potential German Invasion. The base itself served a major refit and repair role. The Germans realised this importance and the city and base in particular was heavily bombed. ^[82]

Portsmouth and the Naval Base itself were the headquarters and main departure point for the military and naval units destined for Sword Beach on the Normandy coast as a part of Operation Overlord and the D-Day landings on 6 June 1944. Troops destined for each of the landing beaches left from Portsmouth aboard vessels such as the armed merchant cruisers HMCS Prince Henry and HMCS Prince David, escorted by the Canadian destroyers HMCS Algonquin and Sioux. The majority of the naval support for the operation left from Portsmouth, including the Mulberry Harbours. Boathouse 4 (built around the start of hostilities) contributed to the construction of landing craft and support vessels as well as more specialised craft such as midget submarines. ^[6]

Post Second World War

There was much rebuilding, demolition and consolidation of bomb-damaged buildings in the aftermath of the Second World War. At the same time, a number of returning ships were refitted in the yard (while others were de-equipped, ready for scrapping). ^[35] The Dockyard was kept busy with refitting and modernisation works through the 1950s and 60s. Private yards were used to a greater extent for shipbuilding, but five new frigates were launched at Portsmouth in this time. Numbers employed in the dockyard remained steadily above 16,000 through the 1950s and early '60s; but a Defence Review published in 1966 signalled a significant reduction in the size of the fleet and a parallel downsizing of workforces in the Royal Dockyards. ^[84]

In the decade that followed No 5 shipbuilding slip was taken out of commission; it was infilled (along with the other remaining slips at the north corner) and the adjacent buildings were demolished. Nevertheless, elsewhere in the yard a number of new workshops and other facilities were built in the 1970s, especially around Nos 12–15 docks (including a large Heavy Plate Shop, now the Steel Production Hall, built on the site of the Edwardian Boiler Shop). ^[6]

In June 1981, however, the government announced that shipbuilding would cease at Portsmouth, that the workforce would be reduced from just under 7,000 to 1,225 and that the erstwhile Royal Dockyard would become a Fleet Maintenance & Repair Organisation (FMRO) with a minor support and repair role (Devonport and Rosyth would take over major refits and ship modernisation work). ^[34] The run-down of the Dockyard was put on hold, however, at the start of the Falklands Conflict, with all available hands being put to the task of preparing the Falklands Task Force. ^[85]

Falklands Task Force

Main article: Falklands War

In 1982 Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands. In response a task force of British military and merchant ships was dispatched from Portsmouth Naval Base to the islands in the South Atlantic to reclaim them for the United Kingdom. ^[85]

The task force consisted of the following ships: ^[86]

• Two aircraft carriers
• Two landing ship docks
• Eight destroyers
• Fifteen frigates
• Three patrol ships
• Five submarines
• Three survey vessels
• Five minesweepers
• Ten fleet tankers
• Six logistic landing ships
• Five supply ships
• One helicopter supply ship
• Eighteen merchant ships including troop/cruise ships such as Queen Elizabeth 2 and SS Canberra

Following some losses, the majority of these ships returned to Portsmouth later that year. ^[87]

Rundown of the Dockyard

Thereafter, some of the cuts that had been proposed in the 1981 Defence White Paper were reversed. The retention of a larger fleet meant that a larger workforce was retained at Portsmouth than had been envisaged (around 2,800); however the run-down of the old Dockyard went ahead, with dry docks 1–7 being closed, just under half the dockside cranes demolished and ten out of the nineteen major workshops on the site taken out of service. ^[34] The dockyard's 'Edwardian piece de résistance', the Great Factory of 1905, ceased manufacturing in 1986 and was converted to serve as a warehouse (at the end of the century it was linked by monorail to other nearby buildings to create a large Central Storage and Distribution Facility). ^[6]

In the older parts of the dockyard several buildings, ranging from storehouses to foundries, were converted for office use; this trend continued in later years. Similarly, the Great Steam Smithery (1852) adjoining the Steam Factory (aka No 2 Ship Shop) underwent conversion in 1993 to provide squash courts, offices, messrooms and a self-service laundry. ^[6] In the same year, Victory Building, a new neo-Georgian office block, was opened on a prominent site facing the historic No 1 basin (just one of several new office blocks built across the dockyard site in each decade of the second half of the century); it accommodated staff of the Second Sea Lord, relocated there from London. ^[88]

In 1998 the work of the FMRO was contracted out to the private sector in the shape of Fleet Support Limited. ^[34]

Shipbuilding, maintenance and repair

Shipbuilding recommenced on the site in 2003 following the construction of a facility by VT Group on the site of No. 13 dry dock (having relocated there from the old Thornycroft Yard in Woolston, Southampton). Modular construction of warships took place in an interlinked complex of large buildings: the Steelwork Production Hall, the Unit Construction Hall and the Ship Assembly Hall. Construction of modules for the Type 45 destroyers and Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers took place here, latterly under BAE Systems Maritime – Naval Ships. The project was intended to secure the base's future for the next forty years and revitalise shipbuilding in the city; ^[91] but in 2013 it was announced that, due to budget cuts, the shipbuilding facility in Portsmouth would close in favour of BAE keeping its yards in Glasgow open. ^[34] (There was speculation at the time that this was to help retain Scotland in the union during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.) ^[92]

BAE Systems, having subsumed Fleet Support Ltd, continues to manage ship repair and maintenance facilities around No. 3 Basin at Portsmouth. As of 2016 the former shipbuilding complex was being used for repairing minehunters and other small craft. ^[93]

New aircraft carriers

In 2013 a £100 million upgrade of the naval base facilities and harbour was begun, in preparation for the arrival of the two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers (Portsmouth having been chosen to serve as their home base). ^[34] These ships required the harbour to be dredged to allow safe entry and exit. ^[94] Victory Jetty and the Middle Slip Jetty were strengthened and upgraded (the latter being renamed Princess Royal Jetty on completion of the works), so as to enable both carriers to lay alongside at the same time. HMS Queen Elizabeth arrived in Portsmouth in 2017, and HMS Prince of Wales followed two years later. ^[95]

Decommissioned

• HMS Dryad: Now MOD Southwick Park—Tri-Service Defence School of Policing and Guarding ^[109]
• HMS Dolphin diesel electric submarine base—Now MOD Fort Blockhouse ^[110]
• HM Gun Wharf, later HMS Vernon torpedo and mines establishment – Now in civilian use as Gunwharf Quays ^[111]
• HMS Daedalus Fleet Air Arm base ^[112]
• Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar ^[113]
• Eastney Barracks (Royal Marine Artillery barracks 1867–1923, Royal Marines barracks 1923–1995) — converted into housing. ^[114]
• Forton Barracks (Royal Marine Light Infantry barracks 1848–1923, then HMS St Vincent boys' training establishment until 1968) — Now in civilian use as St Vincent College ^[115]
• Royal Clarence Victualling Yard, Gosport ^[116]
• RNAD Gosport: a composite site which included: ^[117]
  • RNAD Priddy's Hard (1776) gunpowder storage and shell-filling facility. Closed 1988 – now Explosion! Museum of Naval Firepower
  • RNAD Bedenham (1908) gunpowder stores were moved here from Priddy's Hard (judged to be dangerously close to the Dockyard).
  • RNAD Elson (now part of DM Gosport)
  • RNAD Frater (now part of DM Gosport)
• RNAD Marchwood (1811) closed 1961 – Converted for housing and use by Marchwood Yacht Club
• Haslar Gunboat Yard (opened 1859, closed 1973)
• HMS Mercury: RN Signals School 1941–1993, Leydene House, East Meon, near Portsmouth
• HMS Phoenix: Fire fighting training establishment 1946–1993, now part of HMS Excellent