Green light for Mary Rose museum

An artist's cut-away impression of the new Mary Rose museum

Plans to build a new �35m home for the Tudor warship Mary Rose in Portsmouth's historic dockyard have been given planning approval.

Portsmouth City Council has given the go-ahead for the museum to house King Henry VIII's flagship.

The Mary Rose Trust has raised more than �7m towards the project. The Heritage Lottery Fund has earmarked �21m towards the scheme.

The museum building will resemble a black, wooden, jewellery box.

It will be situated next to HMS Victory.

John Lippiett, The Mary Rose Trust's chief executive, said: "We have reached a real milestone in the project and taken another step in the fascinating journey of the Mary Rose."

Mary Rose sank after 34 years of service with the loss of more than 400 lives on 19 July, 1545.

The hull of the Mary Rose was salvaged in 1982 and has been on display since.

But it will be withdrawn from public view later this year as the new museum is built around it.

The ship will continue to be sprayed with preserving polyethylene glycol, a water-based wax solution, until 2011 before being carefully dried for full display in 2016.

E-mail this to a friend

Printable version