Mary Rose

The Mary Rose sits in an atmospherically controlled dry dock in Portsmouth's historic dockyard. Photograph: Chris Ison/PA

Henry VIII's flagship Mary Rose will be reunited with thousands of objects spilled from her shattered hull in 1545 through a £21m grant for a new museum.

there was delight at Portsmouth's historic dockyard, where the ship and contents have been undergoing conservation work since 1982, when half the hull was recovered. The historian David Starkey, an authority on Tudor history and patron of the project, said: "This is England's Pompeii or Herculaneum, a ship which went down at a recorded point in time, so quickly that it took all the contents with her, preserving a slice of 16th-century military and everyday life."

The Mary Rose broke in two when it sank within sight of Portsmouth harbour on July 19 1545, possibly because it was top-heavy with the new guns Henry had given his favourite ship.
Since then more than 19,000 objects have been recovered, mostly perfectly preserved by the deep silt of the Solent seabed, including weapons and uniforms, the barber-surgeon's wide-brimmed hat and saws for lopping injured limbs, the captain's silver tankards and the crew's rough pottery mugs, a manicure set, playing cards and an opulent inlaid backgammon set.

Full article about the funding of a museum for the Mary Rose can be found here.....http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/heritage/story/0,,2246615,00.html

Something else to visit when I go back across "the pond".