Mary Rose 500

Take a virtual tour of the Mary Rose!

At the start of the year people following the progress of the exciting new Mary Rose museum were treated to a preview of a flythrough of how the inside of the building at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard will look when it opens to public at the end of 2012. Now the Mary Rose Trust is excited to reveal a full-length version to whet appetites for the grand unveiling next year.

This flythrough has been sponsored by construction group Warings and produced by the ID Group with input from lead architects Wilkinson Eyre and internal architects Pringle Brandon, plus exhibition designers Land Design Studio. It shows key aspects of the new museum and also gives a preview through to 2016. The video gives insights into how the Mary Rose will be displayed and how the personal stories of the crew will be highlighted as the collection is reunited with the ship for the first time since her raising in 1982.

 These displays are shown on the flythrough as well as the views through windows into the conservation ‘hot box’. Inside this space, the tubes supplying the air to dry the ship will be seen until 2016 when at last the 30 year conservation programme will be complete and the hull will be fully revealed once more.

2012 will mark thirty years since the entire nation was glued to televisions watching the wreck of the Tudor warship break the surface of the Solent, and will be when the Mary Rose Trust will open a new museum, bringing the hull and many of the 19,000 artefacts that were raised with her together once again.

The building has been designed by Wilkinson Eyre, a prolific firm but probably best known for the Millennium Bridge crossing the Tyne between Gateshead and Newcastle, as well as many museum projects. For the Mary Rose, they have designed an elliptical ‘jewel box’, placing the hull at the centre with galleries running the length of the ship, each at a level corresponding to a deck levels on the ship. Artefacts will be set out in these galleries, designed by the architect and maritime archaeologist Chris Brandon, so that the visitor can see what the decks would have looked like moments before the ship sank.

Warings, a member of the international construction and services group Bouygues, is delivering the construction phase of the £35 million project for the Mary Rose Trust, which is part funded by a £21million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Philippe Jouy, Warings Managing Director, commented “The museum will represent the very best in 21^st century architecture and construction, providing a beautiful and secure environment for the finest collection of 16^th century artefacts in the world.” 

The existing Mary Rose Museum remains open during construction and continues to offer an amazing visitor experience with more than 1,000 of the finest conserved artefacts recovered from the site.