Topic summary
Shore establishment
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Stone frigate.
Historically, the Royal Navy preferred to house and train its sailors on hulks, old wooden ships of the line that were permanently moored offshore. Shore accommodation was regarded as expensive to build and liable to breed indiscipline. The use of hulks became increasingly impractical, however, and they began to be replaced by shore establishments from the late 19th century onwards. An early "stone frigate" was the gunnery school HMS Excellent, established in 1891 to replace a hulk of the same name. By World War I there were about 25 "stone frigates" in the United Kingdom.