Portsmouth
First Royal Charter 1194, world's first dry dock 1495, world's first production line 1803. Now hosts Queen Elizabeth-class carriers and draws hundreds of thousands of tourists.
Portsmouth exists because England needed a place to build warships. In 1194, King Richard I granted the town its first Royal Charter and ordered construction of a dockyard—the first purpose-built naval facility in England. Three centuries later, Henry VII constructed the world's first dry dock here, a technological leap that let ships be repaired without beaching them.
By the turn of the 19th century, the Royal Navy had 684 ships and Portsmouth Dockyard was the largest industrial complex in the world. The Block Mills, completed in 1803, pioneered the world's first production line—using steam-powered machine tools to mass-produce wooden pulley blocks for rigging. Eli Whitney's 'American System' came later.
Admiral Nelson embarked from Portsmouth on HMS Victory in 1805, never to return. The D-Day landings in 1944 were coordinated from here—Operation Overlord sent troops to Sword Beach from these wharves. The base remains one of three Royal Navy operating bases, home to the aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales.
The Historic Dockyard now anchors a tourism economy that draws hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. HMS Victory, HMS Warrior, and the Mary Rose (Henry VIII's flagship, raised from the seabed in 1982) form a timeline of naval history spanning 500 years.
By 2026, the Royal Marines Museum will open in the former Action Stations building. HMS Stirling Castle will serve as a 'mothership' for autonomous mine-hunting vessels—linking Portsmouth's shipbuilding past to naval technology's automated future.