HMS ''Thornham'' was one of 93 ships of the of inshore

minesweepers 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 ...

. Their names were all chosen from villages ending in ''-ham''. The minesweeper was named after Thornham in

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

. She was converted in 1967 at

Rosyth Dockyard Rosyth Dockyard is a large naval dockyard on the Firth of Forth at Rosyth, Fife, Scotland, owned by Babcock Marine, which formerly undertook refitting of Royal Navy surface vessels and submarines. Before its privatisation in the 1990s it was ...

for use by the Aberdeen University Naval Unit. In 1978, HMS Thornham became the first foreign warship to visit the Danish city of

Roskilde Roskilde ( , ) is a city west of Copenhagen on the Danish island of Zealand. With a population of 51,916 (), the city is a business and educational centre for the region and the 10th largest city in Denmark. It is governed by the administrative ...

since the

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

times, when the five

Skuldelev ships The Skuldelev ships are five original Viking ships recovered from the waterway of Peberrenden at Skuldelev, north of Roskilde in Denmark. In 1962, the remains of the submerged ships were excavated in the course of four months. The recovered piece ...

were sunk in the waterway of Peberrenden, 20 km north of the city. HMS ''Thornham'' gave its ship's bell to Thornham Church in 1969, and it is rung to signal the two minutes' silence on

Remembrance Sunday Remembrance Sunday is held in the United Kingdom as a day to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts. It is held on the second Sunday in Nov ...

References

*Blackman, R.V.B. ed. ''Jane's Fighting Ships'' (1953) Ham-class minesweepers Royal Navy ship names 1957 ships {{UK-minesweeper-stub