Five ships of the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
have borne the name HMS ''Bideford'', or the archaic variant HMS ''Biddeford'', after the port town of
Bideford
Bideford ( ) is a historic port town on the estuary of the River Torridge in north Devon, south-west England. It is the main town of the Torridge local government district.
Toponymy
In ancient records Bideford is recorded as ''Bedeford'', ''By ...
,
Devon
Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...
. A sixth was planned but never built:
* was a 24-gun
sixth rate
In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a sixth-rate was the designation for small warships mounting between 20 and 28 carriage-mounted guns on a single deck, sometimes with smaller guns on the upper works and ...
launched in 1695 and wrecked in 1699.
* was a 20-gun sixth rate launched in 1711. She was rebuilt in 1727, and foundered in 1736.
* was a 24-gun sixth rate launched in 1740 and broken up by 1754.
* was a 20-gun sixth rate launched in 1756 and wrecked in 1761.
* HMS ''Bideford'' was to have been a
minesweeper
A minesweeper is a small warship designed to remove or detonate naval mines. Using various mechanisms intended to counter the threat posed by naval mines, minesweepers keep waterways clear for safe shipping.
History
The earliest known usage of ...
, but was cancelled in 1918.
* was a
sloop
A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...
launched in 1931 and sold for scrapping in 1949.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bideford, Hms
Royal Navy ship names