Portsmouth -- The Mary Rose (Part 2 of 2)

 Henry VIII's favourite warship, the Mary Rose, sank just outside of Portsmouth Harbour about 150 years before the time period of our ship. The vessel was found, salvaged, and more recently the hull was raised and established in a museum here. The sinking was just shallow enough to be easy to retrieve, and the water was just cold enough to preserve the vessel and its artifacts extremely well. 

As has become our norm, we arranged reciprocal visiting privileges: their staff could visit our ship for free, and we could visit theirs. Of course we took advantage of that; dedicating an entire day. It was absolutely fascinating and my photos really don't do it justice. Lots more info on their website here: History of the Mary Rose. But in my conversations with the staff about their ship and ours, what really stood out to me was this: each of us appreciated the other's context. The staff at the museum there were envious of us because we actually got to walk on the decks of our ship and genuinely **feel** its scale and touch things, while we were envious of them because their items were genuinely **old** and not just replica. 

Maybe it looked a bit like this?

In a carefully climate-controlled display room, the actual 500 year old hull.

cannon

blocks

tools, shoes, other artifacts

I had never seen anything quite like this tide calculator of the era. It was used to help the pilot estimate the time of high water by taking a bearing on the moon, and is keyed to a specific port. This part of England has rather large tidal ranges so it would be very useful. It's oval shaped and in raised relief so it could be used by touch alone ... very handy on a dark night!  

A somewhat more modern -- but still quite old! -- sundial compass.

  

The bookstore attached to the museum had a huge selection of books about the period, but also t-shirts and mugs ... and this hysterical collection of "King Henry" and "Anne Boleyn" rubber ducks!