Georgian brick storehouses and dry docks line the quays, with HMS Victory and HMS Warrior moored as full size sailing ships.
What Portsmouth Historic Dockyard looks like
Three storey red brick storehouses line Main Road, their arched ground floor bays and shallow pediments repeating from one building to the next. and Storehouse 10 stand side by side, each with a central clock cupola or pediment, cannon barrels set along the pavement in front of one of them. A tall crane rises further along the row, behind a black iron gate and brick walls with white framed windows.
sits in a dry dock behind a low stone parapet, her hull striped black and yellow with open gunports along both sides and her masts rigged to full height above the quay. HMS Warrior is moored at a separate jetty, her iron hull dark against the glass curve of the Spinnaker Tower across the water. , a narrow grey World War One monitor, is moored nearby. A small grey motor gun boat is moored in the harbour as well, low alongside the brick storehouses.
The is a square basin holding small wooden boats at its edge, weatherboarded and brick buildings along its sides. , wood sided, stands across an asphalt yard from the Porter's Lodge garden. Cobbles, flagstones and patched concrete cover the ground throughout the site. marks the entrance from Queen Street, a stone gatehouse dating from 1711. A security fence separates the visitor route from the working naval base beyond.
Shot in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard
The production filmed live action for the ITV series Hornblower on the quarterdeck and gun deck of the actual HMS Victory, rather than building a set. The ship has sat in the same dry dock at the dockyard since 1922.
Hornblower, 1998 to 2003
HMS Victory
Played a Royal Navy ship of the line, the Napoleonic Wars, at sea, early 1800s
The quarterdeck and the gun deck below it are the ship's own, where later live action in the series was filmed. No built set was used, and HMS Victory has sat in the same dry dock at the dockyard since 1922.
Chatham's own Georgian storehouses and dry docks share the same scale and red brick as Portsmouth's, and the yard is already used for naval dockyard filming. Chatham's slip docks are covered by later timber roofs, unlike Portsmouth's open quays. That covered roofline reads differently to camera in a wide shot, so a tighter frame on the storehouses themselves matches Portsmouth more closely. Try searching Georgian dockyard brick storehouses now.
Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston, Massachusetts
USS Constitution sits afloat at Charlestown Navy Yard much as HMS Victory sits in dry dock at Portsmouth, both preserved sailing warships inside a former naval yard. Brick storehouses and a dry dock give the yard a similar working waterfront scale. Boston's downtown skyline is visible across the water in wide shots, which Portsmouth's harbour views do not share. Try searching preserved warship naval yard now.
Royal William Yard was built in the same early 1800s naval building boom as Portsmouth's own storehouses, with long quayside blocks at a similar scale. It has no ships moored at its quays today, so it reads only as the buildings rather than a working dockyard. Its Devon limestone and granite trim are a paler, greyer material than Portsmouth's red brick, which shows in close shots of the facades. Try searching naval storehouses quayside now.
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