PORTSMOUTH’s naval heritage today received a ringing endorsement from the government.
Culture minister Ed Vaizey visited the city to see for himself the work being done on the new Mary Rose museum within the historic dockyard.
He said his interest had been sparked by a meeting with Professor Mark Jones from the Mary Rose Trust, who had been using high powered x-rays on the ship’s artefacts to find out how to preserve them better.
And he said: ‘That’s when I decided to visit the new museum, which will be world-leading when it opens.
‘It was absolutely brilliant to see the museum as it is being built, and I think it’s going to prove hugely popular with the public.
‘They’ll absolutely love it, because you can walk around the ship, meet the kinds of people who would have been on board, and see what they would have had in their leather purses as she went down.’
Mr Vaizey also took the time to see HMS M33, one of only two surviving World War One gunships, and he also took a trip up the Spinnaker Tower.
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