Wednesday 15 July 2009


Hello all, some of you might remember me from the Celebration of Steam blogs. I’m Terri Hall, the Events Co-ordinator here at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. I’ve been working in this role for just over 2 ½ years now and I still thoroughly enjoy it.

Since Celebration of Steam in May I’ve mainly been working on our next large scale event – Royal Navy Past & Present which is taking place this weekend (Saturday 18th & Sunday 19th July) – blimey the months just keep whizzing by!

This event is organised by us at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard and the Royal Navy here in Portsmouth. Our star attraction is going to be the Royal Navy’s new Destroyer - HMS Daring, which will be open for public viewing from 10am – 4pm (last entry) for free. A queuing system to board HMS Daring will be in operation so we apologise in advance for any lengthy queues, but obviously demand will be high.

I’ve been working especially hard on getting a few different forms of entertainment to entertain the queues for HMS Daring, so I think I’ll leave those as a surprise for the day – I hope you enjoy them.

There is lots more going on on site that can be viewed for free as well…




  • Performances from the HM Royal Marines Band in Victory Arena at 12:30pm & 4:30pm


  • Performance from the PT Display Team in Victory Arena at 11am & 2pm


  • A behind the scenes Model Boat Exhibition in the Princess Royal Gallery of the Royal Naval Museum


  • Model Boat exhibition from Philip Warren and his Matchstick Fleet, Portsmouth Model Boat Display Team, Portsmouth & District Model Power Boat Club and the Surface Warship Associations


  • The Steam Pinnace will be along side the Harbour Tours pontoon for people to view and talk to the crew about this wonderful piece of machinery


  • Our Victorian Dockworkers will be working hard across the site as usual!


  • The crew of HMS Loire will be press ganging families to join their crew!


  • And lots, lots more

    Our fantastic attractions are open as usual and tickets can be purchased from the Visitor Centre and Portsmouth Historic Dockyard mobile ticket sellers on Victory Jetty, where HMS Daring will be – so make sure you pop in or see one of our team to ensure you don’t miss out on the fascinating “past” element to this event.

    Cheers
    Terri