National Museum of the Royal Navy Portsmouth

HMS Victory: The Nation's Flagship gallery

HMS Victory: The Nation's Flagship gallery charts the rich history of HMS Victory from acorn to icon as the oldest naval ship in the world still in commission. Learn all about HMS Victory and the people (both famous and otherwise) that built, sailed, conserved and fought for her throughout her history.

Uncover objects from this remarkable survivor and some of her battle scars, including a section of the original mainmast, damaged at the Battle of Trafalgar, which is on display for the first time in Portsmouth.

Going beyond HMS Victory’s immortalised role at the Battle of Trafalgar, the gallery explores her story through a mixture of cinematic film, interactives, and displayed objects like the spectacular ten-foot-tall, 200-year-old figurehead.

It also charts her decline and rescue in the 1920s, several near misses where she was nearly lost to the nation, the heroic attempts to save her, and right through to the state-of-the-art conservation project still ongoing today.

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History

HMS Victory is best known for her final battle, the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, commanded by the legendary Vice-Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, smashing through a combined French and Spanish fleet and leading Britain to a decisive victory ending Napoleon Bonaparte’s aims to conquer Britain. While it was her most famous battle, Victory had been in service for 40 years by then and had undergone at least one major reconstruction.

While the gallery features incredible artefacts from the Battle of Trafalgar, including a section of her main mast with a large shot hole and her figurehead from the battle, it also dives into her lesser-known conflicts prior to Trafalgar.

The talented craftspeople who have worked on HMS Victory throughout her history are also given a special focus. Discover the problems originally faced by the team who wanted to conserve HMS Victory in the 1920s after years of neglect in a special cinematic experience, and learn about some of the team hard at work today ensuring she’s protected for another century.

W.L. Wyllie Panorama

By far the largest item on display in this gallery is the W.L. Wyllie Panorama, a 13 metre by 4 metre painting depicting the Battle of Trafalgar, with HMS Victory as its focal point. It was a gift from the painter himself as a contribution to assist with the conservation of the ship, and the final painting he ever completed. A separate blog on the National Museum of the Royal Navy website goes into detail about HMS Victory after Trafalgar and the W.L. Wyllie panorama.

Figurehead Gallery

Upstairs, the Figurehead Gallery holds a fascinating and colourful display of ships figureheads, from representations of Greek gods and goddesses like Apollo and Euridyce, to depictions of royalty. All of these figureheads were originally attached to 18^th and 19^th century ships and have incredible stories to tell about their makers, the journeys they have made and the crew they carried.