Discovering Portsmouth: A Local's Guide to History, Mystery, and Seaside Splendour

In episode 92 of the UK Travel Planning Podcast, we explore the coastal city of Portsmouth, England, with our special guests, Kevin and Pauline Patterson! 

Listen in as they share insider tips and recommendations for exploring the rich history and vibrant attractions of Portsmouth. 

From the iconic Mary Rose to the historic dockyards and scenic harbour views, this episode is packed with valuable insights for anyone planning a visit to this charming city. 

So, grab a cuppa, sit back, and let's embark on a virtual tour of Portsmouth with Kevin and Pauline.

Guests - Kevin and Pauline Patterson
Show notes - Episode 92

Listen to these episodes next:

• Episode #03 - Visiting York  
• Episode #20 - Exploring the Cotswolds
• Episode #86 - London like a local

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to the UK Travel Planning Podcast. Your host is the founder of the UK Travel Planning website, tracey Collins. In this podcast, tracey shares destination guides, travel tips and itinerary ideas, as well as interviews with a variety of guests who share their knowledge and experience of UK travel to help you plan your perfect UK vacation. Join us as we explore the UK from cosmopolitan cities to quaint villages, from historic castles to beautiful islands, and from the picturesque countryside to seaside towns.

Speaker 2: 0:40

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the UK Travel Plan and Podcast. This week's episode is a destination guide and I know these are very popular. Our chat with York travel expert and local Sinead in episode three is one of our most popular episodes. So this week my focus is further south and on the coastal city of Portsmouth. Now, portsmouth is an easy train ride from London and has many attractions and museums which make this a perfect day out from the capital. As always, I love to chat to locals for their insider knowledge, recommendations and tips, and this week's couple is no exception. So I began by asking them to introduce themselves and tell us how long they have lived in the Portsmouth area.

Speaker 3: 1:23

Hi everyone. My name is Kevin Patterson. I am related to Tracy. Tracy is the daughter of my cousin Marge, and Tracy came to our wedding a long, long time ago in Britain. Pauline and I who will say hello in a minute we've been together since 1972. We've lived in the Portsmouth area since 1971. We were in education for that time and then when we finished in education, we continued living here.

Speaker 4: 1:52

Hi, I'm Pauline. I also went to Portsmouth College of Education where I met Kevin in 72. Originally I'm from Birmingham and when we got together and we got married in 75 in Birmingham, we decided that we would actually stay in the Portsmouth area because we love living on the south coast and it's got so many attractions here and it's a lovely place to live and that's why we'd recommend it as a place to visit.

Speaker 2: 2:33

Oh yeah, absolutely. I agree 100%. It is a fantastic place to visit. Could you explain to listeners exactly where Portsmouth is located in the UK?

Speaker 3: 2:39

So Portsmouth is located on the south coast, as we mentioned, about 75 miles southwest of London. So direct line southwest and you'll hit Portsmouth on the coast very close to the Isle of Wight. So if you look at the coastline of Britain you'll see a little blob which is the Isle of Wight. Portsmouth is very close to that. It's very easy to access from London. So if you're staying in London, there are regular trains from London to Waterloo and it takes about an hour just an hour and a half, sorry to get down to the Harbour Station. And if you get to the Harbour Station you're right in some of the major attractions. Alternatively, there are coaches with a cheaper option which go from London Victoria Coach Station and that also takes you directly to Portsmouth Harbour. It's easy access to the Isle of Wight from there as well. The ferry the passenger ferry is literally at the end of the train platform, outside the train station there's an interchange, so there are buses, coaches and taxis that can get you all over the city.

Speaker 2: 3:45

Yeah, it's very accessible, isn't it? It's a great day trip from London. I know Doug and I are going to be doing an episode of the podcast in a few weeks' time talking about the best and easiest day trips from London, and Portsmouth is an absolutely perfect example, a really easy place to get to by train and really easily accessible to all the sites when you actually get into Portsmouth itself. So that's great, Right? So, guys, I'm going to ask you now what would be your top recommendations? And I know there's loads and loads of things to do in Portsmouth, absolutely loads of things but what would be your top recommendations of places to visit, particularly if somebody's visiting from London, for example? Would you like to talk through each of those places?

Speaker 4: 4:24

Well, what we thought we'd do is the historic dockyard is the absolute number one attraction and you could spend the whole day there because it's vast, there's so much to do and to see. So what I thought I'd do is if I just say a little bit about the dockyard and what it's like and what the pass covers, and then that would definitely be probably a whole day. So literally you walk out of the railway station and you can see the dockyard entrance. And you can see the dockyard entrance. It's about a five minute walk. We looked up the cost, the current cost to get in, and for an adult it's £44. But it covers a huge number of ships you can go and see.

Speaker 4: 5:19

Portsmouth was the base of the British Royal Navy, so it is the Royal Naval Dockyard and it houses four main ships, if you like historic ships. The oldest is the Mary Rose, which actually sank off South Sea, between South Sea and the Isle of Wight in the Solent that's the stretch of water and Henry VIII. It was his flagship battleship and he was watching from South Sea Castle when it sank.

Speaker 2: 5:57

And the day that the Mary Rose sank, that was actually July in 1545.

Speaker 4: 6:02

And it kind of lay there for quite a long time, quite a few years, until they discovered it in 1971, and then it was in 1982 that they actually decided that they were going to bring it up we watched the Mary Rose being lifted from the bottom of the Solent and then it was taken to the dockyard where it's been preserved or parts of it have been preserved, and they've built this most incredible museum about the ship itself and the artifacts. And you can see through the glass the actual old timbers from half the ship. The other half has obviously rotted away, but it's a really excellent place to visit and you'd probably need a couple of hours to go and see just that. So that really would be the number one attraction.

Speaker 4: 7:00

There are three other major ones as well. There's HMS Victory, which was Nelson's flagship, and you can go on board there and it's really interesting because you can see where the gun ports are and where they sat at the tables to have their meals, to have their meals. You can see where the officers slept and where they ate their meal at the front of the ship. So that's a really interesting ship to go on.

Speaker 3: 7:35

It's also self-guided. It's a self-guided audio tour, so you can take as long as you like. There's no kind of hurry for that.

Speaker 2: 7:43

I remember, Doug and I visited the historic dockyard with you guys actually in summer 2022, and I was blown away by the Mary Rose. I think it was probably one of the best museums I've ever been to. The way they've done it is absolute genius, and from there, obviously we saw the Victory as well. At the time it was under a bit of scaffolding Is that still happening?

Speaker 3: 8:06

The situation with it. It's permanently under restoration because of the age of the vessel and at the moment the main masts are down and there's a lot of scaffolding still around Tracey.

Speaker 4: 8:18

But inside the ship it's still as it was.

Speaker 3: 8:22

There's not much going on, particularly there at the moment, outside, there's work always going on um.

Speaker 4: 8:29

so we've got the mary rose, you've got hms victory, then you've got hms warrior, which is the first ironclad ship, and again you can go on board that. And again that's quite a small boat compared with the others, um, but well worth a little walk around. That's probably about half an hour, maybe three quarters of an hour, to do that one. So those are the four main ships, but there's still lots more you can go and visit. Obviously it's got the museum of the royal navy, so if you're particularly interested in that, that's worth a visit. But the other good thing about the ticket for the day well, no, it's, it's an annual ticket, actually the £44.

Speaker 4: 9:44

You get the chance to do a boat trip around the harbour. It includes that. And or you can get a water taxi which goes across the harbour to Gosport where there is the submarine museum, and you can actually walk through the old submarine. And when we went quite recently with our granddaughters two granddaughters and we were met by a veteran, I think, who did an introduction, but then again you walk through at your own pace and you can look at the periscope, and across to Portsmouth, and so that was really interesting and they enjoyed that too.

Speaker 4: 10:33

You can also get the water taxi to the Explosion Museum, which is where the naval firepower, where they did all the ammunition, and you can find out about that as well. So there's quite a lot involved in that ticket, which is why I would suggest it's a day, or if you were able to stay longer, then you might want to split that and, do you know, a couple of ships one day and then a couple of ships another, because there are a lot more attractions in the Portsmouth area as well, which Kevin's going to talk to you about.

Speaker 3: 11:12

Well, we'll talk a little bit about hotels as well. So, if anybody who is staying over but we'll mention that later on paulie mentioned that as you come out of the station you can see the dockyard just to the left. If you turn right, another five minutes walk away, there's gunwolf keys and gunwolf keys is built on an old navy base but it is a mixture of shops and restaurants. There's plenty of places to eat, but there's also a very dramatic spinnaker tower, which was portsmouth's millennium project and it's shaped like a sail. Uh. You can get lifts up to the top, two viewing platforms, wonderful views over the portsmouth uh isle of wight area, particularly if you get a clear day. If it's not a clear day then you're not going to see very much from the top. But you can also have up there an afternoon tea as well, and Paulie and I did that a couple of years ago and again, it's a really nice place to sit, have an afternoon tea with this wonderful view over the dockyard, over the harbour. The entrance fee to get into that is about £16. You can have an afternoon tea for £40 and that includes the entrance to the Spinnaker Tower as well. There's also a traditional pub in the Gunwharf area called the Customs House. That actually is in the old Customs House. If you're looking for a traditional English pub, there's one there and there's another three traditional pub just at the end of the harbour, which is called Old Portsmouth, and it's about a 15-minute walk away, and you can't go wrong, because all you have to do is look on the pavement and on the pavement in stone. If you follow the coiled rope walkway it takes you around to Old Portsmouth and there are three very interesting pubs down there. One of them, the Stone West, has been there for centuries and it's right at the harbour mouth. All of those pubs do beer, they do food, so there's plenty of places to eat and plenty of places to drink, all within walkable distance.

Speaker 3: 13:18

Further attractions again a bus from the interchange just outside the railway station. The bus is every 10 minutes and there are buses number one, number three and number 23. They take you into South Sea only about 10 minutes away, and then you're very close to the D-Day Museum and also, as Pauline mentioned before, southsea Castle. Southsea Castle is free to get in. It's only open March to October, but it is where Henry VIII, as Pauline said, watched the Mary Rose sink. So you can step back in history and imagine the Mary Rose sink into the bottom of the Solent.

Speaker 3: 13:57

The D-Day Museum has just been recently refurbished because obviously it's 80 years this year and it's the story of the D-Day invasion and it's told in a really good way by the stories of individual civilians and soldiers and also artefacts that they have as well, and it follows the story of the D-Day invasion from, you know, the planning up to the battle for Normandy. That is again a good two-hour trip. It's just over £14 to get in £ £12 online. It's again another good two to three hours trip. There's a tapestry in there as well, based on the Bayeux Tapestry, but it's the D-Day story told as a tapestry. It's beautiful and there's a huge landing craft which is a fairly new addition a tank landing craft outside. So if you've got an interest in in world war ii or that era, that again is worth well worth a visit if you're interested in sewing actually an embroidery as well.

Speaker 4: 15:05

The tapestry itself is worth seeing.

Speaker 2: 15:07

It's beautiful I can imagine it does sound amazing. That's. That's somewhere I'm going to add to my list next time I come to visit you guys go and have a look at it.

Speaker 3: 15:17

yeah, the other thing that is probably worth mentioning and this really is very specific for any fans of Sherlock Holmes or Conan Doyle, because it's not very well known, but Conan Doyle worked for two or three years as a doctor in South Sea and he actually wrote the first two Sherlock Holmes short stories. I guess they were in South Sea and Portsmouth Museum, which is signposted from the train station about a 10 minute walk away. It's a bit more than that 15 minutes.

Speaker 3: 15:51

It has the biggest collection of Sherlock Holmes memorabilia in the world. If you're into Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle, it's worth going. If you're not, probably give it a miss.

Speaker 4: 16:04

I know it will be on Doug's list On the floor. Above that exhibition there's also an exhibition about the development of Southsea as a seaside town.

Speaker 3: 16:15

That's another place that's free to get in. Yeah, so you know, if you went in for half an hour or whatever, it would be fine. The thing with a lot of these exhibits, a lot of these attractions, they're weatherproof. You know, if you get a nice day, they're all great. It's a bonus.

Speaker 2: 16:32

The only one really is the Spinnaker Tower, which you wouldn't want to go up if it's poor with rain, because there's not much point, but everywhere else they're all good indoor attractions good indoor attractions and that's good to know, because I mean somebody's basing themselves on london and looking to do a day trip or two and it's going to pour down with rain, and then you know that if you head down to portsmouth you can take the umbrella, but you can go and see all the ships. You're going to be indoors. So that's a great option for people to consider, because we always get asked that so what do I do if it's pouring down with rain? Well, you do as most British people do you put an umbrella up, put a raincoat on and off you go.

Speaker 3: 17:09

Get used to it.

Speaker 4: 17:10

You do need flat shoes, particularly when you're going on the ships, because you go up and down the uh they're very steep they're steep sort of ladders yeah, anybody with mobility issues.

Speaker 3: 17:23

The mary rose itself is very accessible yeah uh, the other two, the other three ships really aren't. Um, you really need flat shoes and be able to get around. Yeah, some of the walkways are very steep and very narrow.

Speaker 4: 17:38

The D-Day.

Speaker 3: 17:39

Museum is fine.

Speaker 4: 17:40

I think that we've covered the main attractions and, of course, the one thing we hadn't mentioned is that and I know Doug's doing a podcast on the Isle of Wight, but from South Sea you can also get the hovercraft across to the island, which only takes about eight minutes.

Speaker 3: 18:01

The other thing with the hovercraft. Of course, it is the only scheduled work and service in the world now, so it's a unique experience, and there is a direct bus. It's called the hover bus. It doesn actually hover. It goes from the interchange right outside the railway station directly to the hovercraft and it's literally 10 minutes across the Solent to ride. It's the only service in the world now. It's a good thing to do as well.

Speaker 2: 18:32

Yeah, I think Doug did that. Oh no, did he do that last summer? I think he did that last summer actually. Now, did he do that last summer? I think he did that last summer. Actually he popped down Because, yes, I went to Paris for the day and he went over to the Isle of Wight and I think he took the hovercraft because I'd been on a hovercraft when I was a child and he had said, oh, I've never been on one. So I think he did that. I think he went to Isle of Wight but he was sent over on a mission to go and explore Isle of Wight for both of us, so that was good.

Speaker 2: 19:05

So obviously you've given loads of suggestions of places to visit. So have you got an outline of an itinerary that somebody could pick up? I know you've mentioned that you could just spend the entire day going to the historic dockyard and I kind of second that because we did that. But if somebody was like, okay, I'm going to get a day, I've got a day, I'm going to come down from London, what would you suggest would be kind of a good itinerary for a day?

Speaker 3: 19:29

well, I think if they're coming for the day and they interested in ships, are interested in the history bit of it, I would say probably the head for the dockyard. Uh, if you're picking one ship to do in the dockyard mary rose, because a, the, it's one of the, very well, there's only one other one that I'm aware of in Sweden. I'm restored but you know, you can actually see and get an idea what the boat would have been like from the 15th century and, as you said before, tracy, the state of the art museum. Because they've done so, you could dip into the other ones. Spend some time at the Mary Rose. If you wanted to dip into the other ones, do so. It's worth probably doing. If the wanted to dip into the ones, do so. It's worth probably doing.

Speaker 3: 20:15

If the weather's nice, doing the harbour cruise yeah you know, because it's a nice thing to do and you get an idea of some of the other navy ships that are in there. So would that then also, you know, then go and have possibly a lunch into Goon Wharf? Yeah, uh, there's plenty of places. I would probably get the bus and go down to Southsea and just have a look at the setting of the D-Day Museum and Southsea Castle if it's the summer months, because again you get a really wonderful view.

Speaker 3: 20:51

And there are three forts in the Solent yeah, um called palmerston's folly and they're round forts that are sticking up and they're worth looking at too and then, if you wanted to walk back, you could again just follow the sea into old portsmouth, go and have a pint or a bite to eat at the still in west, you know, probably one of the old, well, probably the oldest pub in portsmouth and then follow that road path back to the railway station that sounds absolutely perfect, kevin.

Speaker 3: 21:22

A really amazing itinerary for a day anybody who's coming by car wouldn't actually be coming by london, but I know some of your visitors might be coming you know from elsewhere, from from Bath or Dorset or somewhere. There's a very large car park and it's signposted from the Oscar Supportsman.

Speaker 2: 21:41

Oh, perfect, and is that paid parking or free parking? That's paid, paid, okay, yeah, usually it's paid in the UK I think in Australia we're kind of used to most of the time it's free, so it's always a bit of a shock when we go to the uk and most of the time it's paid. Yeah, you have to pay for it. So I've talked about places to eat, we've talked about good places to have a pint, so all of those were put in the show notes, so that's really useful. I'm just thinking, if I was going to go to the historic dockyard, would you recommend the weekdays, weekends, would you say it's going to be busier at certain times of the year school holidays will be a bit busy.

Speaker 3: 22:14

Uh, bank holidays, school holidays busier. Uh, mid midweek, I mean, if they were going midweek in may, june, september, you'd get some school parties in places like the mary row was visiting, but it's not going to be horrendous at any time. The only times that you would avoid was probably bank holidays, really but even there it's such a big site.

Speaker 4: 22:39

It's such a big site you can get around in some ways it's quite buzzy having people around isn't?

Speaker 3: 22:45

it and gung wolf can be busy, but there's so many places to eat it's not a problem. You could wander in and just say you know, have you got a table?

Speaker 4: 22:53

you'll find somewhere to eat all the attractions we've mentioned have all got cafes as well, so if you wanted just a snacky, lunch or a coffee, but then maybe go to gun wharf or one of the pubs for, um you know, an evening meal before you head on back.

Speaker 2: 23:13

Well, I always end the podcast with the same question what would be your top tip for someone planning a visit to Portsmouth for the very first time? Definitely the Mary Rose. Yeah, yeah, I'd go with that, the Mary Rose Somewhere unique and you're not going to see anything like that anywhere else in the world. I kind of third that as well, because it was somewhere I'd always wanted to go and it absolutely blew my mind. I've never been anywhere that has done just such a good job with how they've designed that museum.

Speaker 2: 23:40

It is very, very special what they've done there. But, guys, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I've been asking for a while and you've been saying that you'd love to do it, so absolute pleasure to talk to you guys today. Yeah, that's great. Once again, I'd like to say a huge thank you to kev and pauline for agreeing to come on the podcast. It was wonderful to talk about portsmouth. I say we always love visiting you guys and it's just a wonderful place to go and explore. You can find links to everywhere that pauline and Kevin talked about, including the different museums, the historic dockyards and the pubs, in this week's show notes at uktravelplanetcom. Forward slash, episode 92. That just leaves me to say until next week, happy UK travel planning. Thank you.