The seventeenth

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 ...

vessel to be named HMS ''Dolphin'' was the Royal Naval

shore establishment A stone frigate is a naval establishment on land. "Stone frigate" is an informal term that has its origin in Britain's Royal Navy after its use of Diamond Rock, an island off Martinique, as a 'sloop of war' to harass the First French Empire, ...

sited at

Fort Blockhouse Fort Blockhouse is a military establishment in Gosport, Hampshire, England, and the final version of a complicated site. At its greatest extent in the 19th century, the structure was part of a set of fortifications which encircled much of Gos ...

Gosport Gosport ( ) is a town and non-metropolitan borough on the south coast of Hampshire, South East England. At the 2011 Census, its population was 82,662. Gosport is situated on a peninsula on the western side of Portsmouth Harbour, opposite t ...

. ''Dolphin'' was the home of the Royal Navy Submarine Service from 1904 to 1999, and location of the

Royal Navy Submarine School The Royal Navy Submarine School trains non-officer submariners and is located at at Torpoint in Cornwall. In 2017 a plan to relocate the school to HMNB Clyde was announced. See also Submarine Command Course The Submarine Command Course (SMCC), p ...

Closure of submarine base

HMS ''Dolphin'' closed as a

submarine base A submarine base is a military base that shelters submarines and their personnel. Examples of present-day submarine bases include HMNB Clyde, Île Longue (the base for France's Force océanique stratégique), Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Na ...

on 30 September 1998, although the last RN submarine permanently based at Gosport was HMS ''Ursula'' which had left 4 years earlier in 1994. The Royal Navy Submarine School (RNSMS) remained at ''Dolphin'' until 23 December 1999 when it closed prior to relocation to HMS ''Raleigh'' at Torpoint in

Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...

. The RNSMS staff marched into HMS ''Raleigh'' and were welcomed on board by Commodore Lockwood on 31 January 2000. The RNSMS is located in the Dolphin and Astute blocks at ''Raleigh'', although the

Submarine Escape Training Tank A Submarine Escape Training Tower is a facility used for training submariners in methods of emergency escape from a disabled submarine underwater. It is a deep tank filled with water with at least one underwater entrance at depth simulating an ai ...

(SETT), a 30m deep tank of water used to instruct all RN submariners in pressurised escape, remains at the same site, now renamed Fort Blockhouse.

Submarine museum

The

Royal Navy Submarine Museum The Royal Navy Submarine Museum at Gosport is a maritime museum tracing the international history of submarine development from the age of Alexander the Great to the present day, and particularly the history of the Royal Navy Submarine Service ...

is still sited nearby on Haslar Jetty Road next to Fort Blockhouse and

Royal Naval Hospital Haslar The Royal Hospital Haslar in Gosport, Hampshire, was one of several hospitals serving the local area. It was converted into retirement flats between 2018 and 2020. The hospital itself is a Grade II listed building. History Formation and ope ...

External links

Royal Navy Submarine School (RNSMS)

Royal Navy Submarine Museum
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