Lottery cash helps to re-home the Mary Rose

The Heritage Lottery Fund has agreed to use lottery cash to re-home the Mary Rose in a purpose built museum which will give visitors the chance to walk alongside the famous warship on glass walkways and get closer to the historic vessel than ever before.

The Mary Rose currently resides in a dry dock in Portsmouth Harbour where she has been since she was raised from the sea bed in 1982. The Mary Rose sank after 34 years of service along with the 400 men who lost their lives. When she was first launched the Mary Rose was the pride of King Henry VIII’s naval fleet, which he named after his favourite sister Mary Tudor, who later became the queen of France.

The new museum which is to hold the historic warship will reflect the original ship’s structure with Nelson’s HMS Victory docked alongside. The National Lottery funded project will see the Mary Rose undertake much preservation work including being sprayed with preserving polyethylene glycol, a water-based wax solution which will eventually be baked into the timbers preserving the ship for all time. The whole project will cost around £35 million with £21 million coming from the National Lottery’s Heritage Fund and the museum should open by 2012, in time for the Olympic Games with the preservation work finally be completed by 2016.

It’s certainly nice to hear lottery news like this and to know that when you buy tickets for the National Lottery some of your money is going towards good causes such as this. Remember that you can buy tickets for the National Lottery right here at Online Lotto. Just click the appropriate National Lottery Link below.