The Diving Museum
Further to my previous blog about how how frustrating Gosport can be because of all it's hidden gems, I want to mention The Diving Museum.
This small and highly specialised museum is hidden in away in No 2 Battery at the eastern end of Stokes Bay. The Battery was part of the ring of defences around Portsmouth Harbour, which included the Palmerston Follies. The museum was opened earlier this year by The Historical Diving Society and it's manned by volunteers from that society.
We paid our 2 quid entry fee and were pounced upon by one of the volunteers, an ex Royal Navy diver, who offered to show us around and explain the exhibits. And this he did with obvious relish and certainly a deep knowledge of his subject. The museum has exhibits from the early days of commercial diving in the 19th century right up to modern sports diving (using equipment supplied by BSAC) and saturation diving. There's a good balance between civillian and military diving and between commercial and sports diving and no shortage of exhibits with thre being lots of examples in each category.
What became clear right at the beginning of the tour, was that Gosport was the birthplace of modern commercial diving:
It is not yet popularly known, but Gosport is the home of the global diving industry. The co-inventor of the diving helmet, John Deane, lived in Gosport from 1835 to 1845 during which time he discovered the Mary Rose. The first diving helmet ever sold by the inventors was to a Gosport mariner, Henry Abbinett. Gosport represents a natural home for the country's premier historical diving museum.
(from www.divingmuseum.co.uk)
Apart from my sports diving interest, I was really pleased to make a connection with one of the other exhibits. When I was a baby sailor on HMS GALATEA in 1974, I was sent off to Fort Bovisand, near Plymouth to train as a Swimmer of the Watch. We had to don a 3 piece diving suit made up of a top and bottom, the two open ends of which are rolled together before being covered with a cummerbund. And I was chuffed to see that same suit being exhibited!
So this is Gosport's 4th museum. It already has the Submarine Museum, Explosion!, and the local natural history museum The town also has it's 17th century village, and the Institute of Naval Medicine holds many artefacts and historical papers from the history of the Royal Naval Medical Branch.
Further to my previous blog about how how frustrating Gosport can be because of all it's hidden gems, I want to mention The Diving Museum.
This small and highly specialised museum is hidden in away in No 2 Battery at the eastern end of Stokes Bay. The Battery was part of the ring of defences around Portsmouth Harbour, which included the Palmerston Follies. The museum was opened earlier this year by The Historical Diving Society and it's manned by volunteers from that society.
We paid our 2 quid entry fee and were pounced upon by one of the volunteers, an ex Royal Navy diver, who offered to show us around and explain the exhibits. And this he did with obvious relish and certainly a deep knowledge of his subject. The museum has exhibits from the early days of commercial diving in the 19th century right up to modern sports diving (using equipment supplied by BSAC) and saturation diving. There's a good balance between civillian and military diving and between commercial and sports diving and no shortage of exhibits with thre being lots of examples in each category.
What became clear right at the beginning of the tour, was that Gosport was the birthplace of modern commercial diving:
It is not yet popularly known, but Gosport is the home of the global diving industry. The co-inventor of the diving helmet, John Deane, lived in Gosport from 1835 to 1845 during which time he discovered the Mary Rose. The first diving helmet ever sold by the inventors was to a Gosport mariner, Henry Abbinett. Gosport represents a natural home for the country's premier historical diving museum.
(from www.divingmuseum.co.uk)
Apart from my sports diving interest, I was really pleased to make a connection with one of the other exhibits. When I was a baby sailor on HMS GALATEA in 1974, I was sent off to Fort Bovisand, near Plymouth to train as a Swimmer of the Watch. We had to don a 3 piece diving suit made up of a top and bottom, the two open ends of which are rolled together before being covered with a cummerbund. And I was chuffed to see that same suit being exhibited!
So this is Gosport's 4th museum. It already has the Submarine Museum, Explosion!, and the local natural history museum The town also has it's 17th century village, and the Institute of Naval Medicine holds many artefacts and historical papers from the history of the Royal Naval Medical Branch.
I still would like to see you take that class you were thinking about last year!
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