London Sights and Tall Ships

Hey guys, I will be in London in a few weeks (wife is going on a business trip, I get to help her with the luggage) and was wondering if besides the tours of the H.M.S. Victory and the Cutty Sark what other tall ships or other historic ships for that matter are there to visit. And while I am in the ship visiting mood, any maritime museums in the area that you can suggest. Don't forget the hobby shops. I will be staying just North of London, (Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire).

Many thanks in advance,

Ray Austin, TX ===

Reply to
Ray S. & Nayda Katzaman
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HMS Victory is in Portsmouth not London.

There is a replica of the Golden Hind

And the WWII Warship HMS Belfast.

At Portsmouth if you do get down there you will see

HMS Victory HMS Warrior and the remains of the Mary Rose

Cheers,

Nigel

Reply to
Nigel Heather

Ray wrote

There's National Maritime Museum

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in Greenwich, within easy walking distance from the Cutty Sark
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is itself close to an underground station and a ferry pier). Between the two there's the Painted Hall of the Old Naval College
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which is an interesting building in itself but is also notable for being the place they had Nelson's corpse on public view before his funeral.

In theory there's all sorts of interesting stuff in the Maritime Museum but last time I went it seemed to have been reorganized to be 'child friendly' (in the sense of reducing the number of things to actually look at, and being full of hyperactive kids).

HMS Belfast

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an outpost of the Imperial War museum is floating on the south bank of the Thames, a little up river from Tower Bridge. The replica Golden Hinde
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is a bridge or so further up river from the HMS Belfast. The Belfast is big, and takes some time to tour; the Golden Hinde isn't and doesn't.

If you're near the Tower of London at any point (and you wouldn't be too far if you visit the Belfast), there's a very large and moving memorial listing, I think, all the crews and ships of the Merchant Navy lost in the two World Wars.

Reply to
Rik Shepherd

Watch your head-they didn't build these "Tall Ships" for tall people! :-)

Fascinating to think that Henry the VIII walked those deck planks.

Bill Shuey

Reply to
William H. Shuey

Rik,

Thanks for the list. I too will be in Merrye Olde later in the year and will want to go see and do. My main focus is going to be airyplanes, but anything historic and mechanical is worth a look IMO.

Rob

Reply to
AussieRob

I heard once that Cutty Sark has the lowest headroom of all. It was supposedly to stop sailors from taking a nap by lying on the tea chests stored below decks.

(kim)

Reply to
kim

Rob wrote

No problems... of course, if you're after planes, and you're in the vicinity of London, there's

(a) RAF Hendon, the RAF museum [

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] ; accessible by getting off the underground at Colindale Station, and walking for a bit. Remember to turn LEFT on leaving the station, otherwise you walk a long way until you find someone who knows where the museum is. I couldn't see any signs for it until it was more or less visible, and it's just off the edge of the A-Z street maps. Well worth a visit, though.

(b) The Duxford branch of the IWM [

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], which I can't say anything about because I've only been past it on the train (but the train was going into London, which at least implies you could catch a train out to get there). Looking at the website, I notice it costs £13 to get into Duxford, which might be a reason I haven't been. There are a few planes hanging from ceiling at the main Imperial War Museum in Lambeth (get off the tube at Lambeth North - in theory you can walk from Waterloo station, in practice it's nigh impossible to get out of Waterloo if you follow the signs)

(c) The Flight Gallery of the Science Museum in South Kensington [

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]. Mostly models, but a few real planes as well. They've left their SE5a as one of Col. Savage's inter-war skywriting planes, unlike Hendon, who decided they wanted a more military appearance. Obviously, the rest of the Science Museum [
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] is filled with technological things of various sorts.

For massive mechanical weirdness, if you're in London on the first Sunday of the month, there's the Kirkaldy Testing Museum [ no website, but contact details at

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in Southwark, which is mostly an impressive Victorian device used to twist, compress, stretch, shear and general mess around with samples of metal to find out their breaking points. It's about 47 foot long, weighs 116 tons (which is why, when the Kirkaldy family sold the purpose-built building it's in, the new owners just resigned themselves to not having a ground floor), and still works. It's run by volunteers, hence the rather limited opening hours. The building looks rather as if it was built around the machine. Even if you're not there when it's supposed to be opening, it's worth ringing a bit ahead, to see if anyone's going to be there - we got in on a Thursday afternoon because the curator had to show a TV producer around.

Reply to
Rik Shepherd

You might want to take a train to Hartlepool and see HMS Trincomalee--an as-built Leda class frigate from 1817, almost fully restored.

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tomcervo

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Andrew M

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