Whale Island is a small island in Portsmouth Harbour, close by Portsea Island. It is home to HMS Excellent, the oldest shore training establishment within the Royal Navy, and the location of the Navy Command Headquarters. The island is linked to Portsea Island and thence to the mainland by road bridges.
Portsea Island is a flat and low-lying natural island 24.5 square kilometres in area, just off the southern coast of Hampshire in England. Portsea Island contains the majority of the city of Portsmouth.
HMS Excellent is a Royal Navy "stone frigate" sited on Whale Island near Portsmouth in Hampshire. HMS Excellent is itself part of the Maritime Warfare School, with a headquarters at HMS Collingwood, although a number of lodger units are resident within the site including the offices of the First Sea Lord.
The M275 is a 2-mile-long (3 km), dual three-lane motorway in Hampshire, southern England. It is the principal road route for entering and leaving Portsmouth. It continues as the A3 into Portsmouth, and meets the M27 at its northern terminus. From the motorway, there are scenic views over Portsmouth harbour, and the Sails of the South between the two carriageways.
Portsmouth Harbour is a 1,264.2-hectare (3,124-acre)/12.6 km2 (4.9 sq mi) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest between Portsmouth and Gosport in Hampshire. It is a Ramsar site and a Special Protection Area.
His Majesty's Naval Base, Portsmouth is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy. Portsmouth Naval Base is part of the city of Portsmouth; it is located on the eastern shore of Portsmouth Harbour, north of the Solent and the Isle of Wight. For centuries it was officially known as HM Dockyard, Portsmouth: as a Royal Dockyard, Portsmouth functioned primarily as a state-owned facility for building, repairing and maintaining warships; for a time it was the largest industrial site in the world.
Gunwharf Quays is a shopping centre located in the Portsea area of the city of Portsmouth in England. It was constructed in the early 21st century on the site of what had once been HM Gunwharf, Portsmouth. This was one of several such facilities which were established around Britain and the Empire by the Board of Ordnance, where cannons, ammunition and other armaments were stored, repaired and serviced ready for use on land or at sea. Later known as HMS Vernon, the military site closed in 1995, and opened to the public as Gunwharf Quays on 28 February 2001 after six years of reconstruction. The landmark Spinnaker Tower, which stands close to the site on pilings in Portsmouth Harbour, was opened on 18 October 2005.
Stamshaw is a residential district of Portsmouth, located on the north western corner of Portsea Island in southern England.
The Tri-Sail, commonly referred to as the Sails of the South, is a 43 m (141 ft)–high structure situated between two carriageways of the M275 motorway just outside Portsmouth, England. It was unveiled in March 2001 in order to enhance the entrance to the city as part of the regeneration scheme The Gateway Project. HGP Architects, whose offices are located in Fareham less than 5 miles (8.0 km) away, realised the scheme and installation. The structure is one of the tallest in Portsmouth.
Horsea Island was an island located off the northern shore of Portsmouth Harbour, England; gradually subsumed by reclamation, it is now connected to the mainland. Horsea falls within the city of Portsmouth and was wholly owned by the Ministry of Defence as part of the shore establishment HMS Excellent, which maintains its headquarters on Whale Island.
Priddy's Hard is a former military installation in Gosport on the south coast of England, named for the original landowner and the firm beach found there.
Tipner Lake forms the north eastern section of Portsmouth Harbour. It is not an actual lake, but the reclamation of land north of Horsea Island and the building of the M275 motorway in the early 1970s, which passes over a bridge to the west of the lake, can give the impression the body of water is no longer connected to the harbour. The lake is also connected to Portsbridge Creek.
His Majesty's Naval Base, Devonport is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy and is the sole nuclear repair and refuelling facility for the Royal Navy. The largest naval base in Western Europe, HMNB Devonport is located in Devonport, in the west of the city of Plymouth, England.
HMS Vernon was a shore establishment or "stone frigate" of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth. Vernon was established on 26 April 1876, as the Royal Navy's Torpedo Branch also known as the Torpedo School, named after the ship HMS Vernon which served as part of its floating base. After the First World War, HMS Vernon moved ashore, taking over the Gunwharf site, where it continued to operate until 1 April 1996, when the various elements comprising the establishment were split up and moved to different commands.
A gunpowder magazine is a magazine (building) designed to store the explosive gunpowder in wooden barrels for safety. Gunpowder, until superseded, was a universal explosive used in the military and for civil engineering: both applications required storage magazines. Most magazines were purely functional and tended to be in remote and secure locations. They are the successor to the earlier powder towers and powder houses.
Port Solent is the commercial business name of a housing and leisure development located in the Paulsgrove suburb of the English city of Portsmouth, Hampshire, comprising a marina, a housing estate, shopping and leisure facilities.
A Royal Naval Armament Depot (RNAD) is an armament depot dedicated to supplying the Royal Navy. They were sister depots of Royal Naval Cordite Factories, Royal Naval Torpedo and Royal Naval Mine Depots. The only current RNAD is RNAD Coulport, which is the UK Strategic Weapon Facility for the nuclear-armed Trident Missile System, with many others being retained as tri-service 'Defence Munitions' sites.
HMS King Alfred is a Royal Naval Reserve shore establishment in Portsmouth, England. The unit has a complement of over 200 reservists and provides training facilities to other lodger units, including the local Royal Marines Reserve (RMR) City of London, and local University Royal Naval Unit (URNU).
RML 16-inch 80-ton guns were large rifled muzzle-loading guns intended to give the largest British battleships parity with the large guns being mounted by Italian and French ships in the Mediterranean Sea in the 1870s.
