:00:00. > :00:00.King Henry VIII's famous warship the Mary Rose. During 2013, the BBC's
:00:00. > :00:00.Robert Hall followed the construction of a new museum that
:00:00. > :00:10.revealed the ship and the many stories hidden among its treasures.
:00:11. > :00:16.In Portsmouth's historic dockyard, a flavour of the Tudor past. British
:00:17. > :00:22.warships have been built and launched here for centuries. These
:00:23. > :00:33.celebrations are in honour of just one. The pride of Henry VIII's navy.
:00:34. > :00:40.The Mary Rose. It is a story which stretches back
:00:41. > :00:44.half a millennium. A tragedy. A mystery. A tale of the patience,
:00:45. > :00:49.expertise and determination which brought this maritime legend safely
:00:50. > :00:56.to her new home. And which will teach us so much about the men who
:00:57. > :01:01.served on her. It was the Titanic of its day, losing a huge chunk of the
:01:02. > :01:05.population. It is as though we have the English tomb of Tutankhamen.
:01:06. > :01:10.Except that it's put together deliberately. These represent a
:01:11. > :01:15.particular moment of time. I think it is a duty to the crew of the Mary
:01:16. > :01:20.Rose. It is their monument. And I think we have a duty to share it
:01:21. > :01:23.with the public. If you pick up a ship from the sea bed, you are
:01:24. > :01:36.taking on a responsibility for eternity.
:01:37. > :01:46.There is the wreck of the Mary Rose. It has come to the surface.
:01:47. > :01:53.What an amazing sight. On October the 11th, 1982, the Mary
:01:54. > :01:59.Rose came home. Tragically sunk, lost for centuries. She had lain
:02:00. > :02:11.within a mile of the docks where she was built.
:02:12. > :02:18.I remember soon after we recovered her. Somebody said, why are you
:02:19. > :02:25.standing there? What are you thinking? I'm thinking about, if
:02:26. > :02:30.they had told me this could not be done, I would have believed them. It
:02:31. > :02:37.was an impossible task. But with a good team, it worked. I was sent in
:02:38. > :02:45.with a film camera, to record this underwater. And the ship was just
:02:46. > :02:48.moving around. And the water sort of pumps, silty water, out from the
:02:49. > :02:52.bottom of the ship. And it looked as though the Mary Rose was breathing.
:02:53. > :03:02.When it was underwater, it belonged to us. But at last, on that day in
:03:03. > :03:05.1982, we were sharing this ship with the world. The millions who watched
:03:06. > :03:13.the recovery operation included an enthusiastic member of today's Royal
:03:14. > :03:17.family. His thoughts were with the King who is said to be present on
:03:18. > :03:25.that dark day in 1545. The fact it has been preserved makes it
:03:26. > :03:31.worthwhile. I thought I owed it to him to make sure it came home.
:03:32. > :03:37.Henry VIII is credited as the founder of the Royal Navy. And the
:03:38. > :03:44.Mary Rose, named after his favourite sister, was the pride of the fleet.
:03:45. > :03:50.When I look at this absolutely beautiful book. If we open it up, we
:03:51. > :03:54.can see that actually, it was presented to King Henry VIII in
:03:55. > :03:57.1546. And it is a declaration of the Royal Navy of England, composed by
:03:58. > :04:00.Anthony Anthony, one of the Officers of the Ordnance. If we turn the
:04:01. > :04:03.page, we will find the most important significance for us. The
:04:04. > :04:10.only illustration we have of the Mary Rose. What it is depicting is
:04:11. > :04:15.not necessarily the most artistically accurate illustration
:04:16. > :04:20.of a naval ship. But what it shows is the four masted sailing vessel.
:04:21. > :04:30.Bristling with guns. It shows a main deck and another two rows of guns on
:04:31. > :04:37.top of it. 600 tonnes and carrying a crew of 400, Mary Rose had proved
:04:38. > :04:39.herself in battle. She was the obvious choice to lead the fleet
:04:40. > :04:46.against the threat of French invasion. But as the flagship tacked
:04:47. > :04:50.across the Solent in a stiff breeze, horrified onlookers saw her heel
:04:51. > :04:57.over. Shipping water through the open gun ports. She went down within
:04:58. > :05:00.minutes. Most of her crew trapped under anti-boarding nets. Only a
:05:01. > :05:20.couple of dozen survived. Swallowed by mud and silt, Mary
:05:21. > :05:29.Rose, her crew and the contents, lay undisturbed for centuries. A time
:05:30. > :05:37.capsule of Tudor life. Unique and precious. Now raised into a hostile
:05:38. > :05:43.environment above the waves. There were quick decisions to be
:05:44. > :05:49.made. The surviving starboard side of the ship could not be allowed to
:05:50. > :05:58.dry out. Up here, we can see where we marked those three timbers with
:05:59. > :06:02.the orange tanks. -- tags. They were the first ones the divers saw
:06:03. > :06:05.underwater. From those and everything else here, it was
:06:06. > :06:11.uncovered by the divers, by hand, during the excavation. That shows
:06:12. > :06:15.what a Herculean task it was. But a round-the-clock spray water would
:06:16. > :06:19.not be enough. It was time to seek advice. 1000 miles to the
:06:20. > :06:20.north-east, Scandinavian colleagues could offer solutions from another
:06:21. > :06:45.remarkable success. It is the story of the Vasa. Lost on
:06:46. > :06:49.her maiden voyage near Stockholm 80 years after the Mary Rose tragedy.
:06:50. > :06:52.And raised intact 20 years before the Portsmouth operation. Now
:06:53. > :07:01.stabilised and the star of her own museum. Vasa was a pioneering
:07:02. > :07:06.project in the field of raising an intact ship. Or substantially intact
:07:07. > :07:11.big ship. And Mary Rose came along a generation after that. So Mary Rose
:07:12. > :07:19.was able to learn from the mistakes that were made with Vasa. You could
:07:20. > :07:22.say that. For example, in the conservation treatment, after the
:07:23. > :07:27.ship was raised, this was the first ship that anyone triws to conserve
:07:28. > :07:31.using polyethylene glycol. -- anyone tried to. Polyethylene glycol was
:07:32. > :07:37.pumped onto and into every timber on this ship. It replaced the water
:07:38. > :07:42.with wax. It was soon after the chemical. Then Mary Rose came along
:07:43. > :07:45.and we were able to take everything that had been learned about how this
:07:46. > :07:48.chemical behaves. And how it works in conjunction with wood. And
:07:49. > :07:55.develop a more sophisticated and more effective treatment.
:07:56. > :07:57.Back in Portsmouth, as the round-the-clock operation rolled on
:07:58. > :08:06.inside the Mary Rose's protective tent, a major change is underway
:08:07. > :08:08.outside. A ?35 million dream to build a state-of-the-art busy around
:08:09. > :08:12.the ship, whilst leaving that sealed environment intact. -- museum
:08:13. > :08:28.around. The building really is a sort of
:08:29. > :08:35.diagram which encloses the objects inside, within the dry dock. If you
:08:36. > :08:40.take the section of it where the dry dock goes around. There is the Mary
:08:41. > :08:45.Rose on one side in its cradle. And we have put in a virtual hull on the
:08:46. > :08:53.other. Then we have put decks between. That is the concept.
:08:54. > :09:00.It is a memorial further 500 sailors that sank on board her. On the 19th
:09:01. > :09:04.of July, 1545. It is about displaying the contents. This
:09:05. > :09:08.extraordinary collection of Tudor objects. Nothing like it in the
:09:09. > :09:14.world. And reuniting it with the ship. The previous museum was 500
:09:15. > :09:20.metres away. It had no relationship to the hull. So bringing the two
:09:21. > :09:25.together would enable the public to interpret the two together. To
:09:26. > :09:27.understand what it was like to live on board and work on board and fight
:09:28. > :09:40.on board a Tudor warship. Away from the building site bustle,
:09:41. > :09:46.the Mary Rose conservation team was solving another problem. How to
:09:47. > :09:51.reunite her with more than 19,000 artefacts recovered from in and
:09:52. > :10:00.around the hull. So, what are you doing here? We are
:10:01. > :10:05.removing some of these arrows from their treatment solution. They are
:10:06. > :10:10.now ready to undergo the next process, which is to dry them. And
:10:11. > :10:16.before we can do that, we have got to wash off the excess chemicals.
:10:17. > :10:21.Then we will put them into a special machine to dry them very safely. How
:10:22. > :10:25.many arrows have you had to do this with? Well over 3000 that we found
:10:26. > :10:31.on the Mary Rose. These are examples of the Tudor Rose. You can see the
:10:32. > :10:36.detail on them. You can see the detail of the fletching. The silk
:10:37. > :10:40.binding that would have held the goose feathers into position. They
:10:41. > :10:48.have lost their metal tips, of course. The corroded in the sea
:10:49. > :10:53.water. -- they. So these have been in treatment solution for about two
:10:54. > :10:57.years. In order to stabilise them. If we tried to dry these without any
:10:58. > :11:00.treatment, they would just collapse and crack and twist. So this
:11:01. > :11:07.chemical we use, it is quite viscous. It would prevent that from
:11:08. > :11:10.happening. Preserving, cleaning and reconstructing, across the dockyard,
:11:11. > :11:19.fragments of the past were pieced together. This is one of the many
:11:20. > :11:28.books that were found on the Mary Rose. I think this one in particular
:11:29. > :11:31.was found closed together. The books we have are mainly made from very
:11:32. > :11:36.fine slivers of wood. Then leather is applied over the top. So you were
:11:37. > :11:46.replacing tiny bits of leather. Is that what you do? Yes, I am. Like a
:11:47. > :11:51.jigsaw puzzle? Yes. It is very painstaking. I have got this far. I
:11:52. > :11:59.have the rest of this to put on there. How long will that take?
:12:00. > :12:05.Quite a long time. Are we talking weeks? Not constantly, but a long
:12:06. > :12:14.time. The arrows were on their way to the deep freeze. What we do, we
:12:15. > :12:19.freeze the objects. So the temperature of the objects is down
:12:20. > :12:26.as low as minus 30 Celsius. And then, we remove the air from the
:12:27. > :12:29.chamber. So we have low pressure. Under those conditions of low
:12:30. > :12:32.temperature and low pressure, the process is called sublimation. We
:12:33. > :12:36.can safely move water from these objects without changing the shape
:12:37. > :12:40.or size of the object. So it sucks up and becomes a gas? It becomes a
:12:41. > :12:48.gas. When we freeze it, it becomes ice. And a low claim future -- under
:12:49. > :12:55.load temperature, low pressure, it becomes a gas. So the gas comes away
:12:56. > :12:59.from the object. And after being in this chamber for around five to six
:13:00. > :13:01.weeks, we would have removed all the water. They will be solid? They
:13:02. > :13:24.would be solid and dry. As the weeks tick by, a snapshot of
:13:25. > :13:31.history was being assembled. Items hidden from view for so long would
:13:32. > :13:40.soon be revealed. How many years have you been on the
:13:41. > :13:46.project? 25 years. Did you realise what you were getting into? Not at
:13:47. > :13:57.all. You have sections of rope which has survived? We have. That is a
:13:58. > :14:03.piece of anchor cable and here are some leather shoes. In remarkable
:14:04. > :14:12.condition, as you can see. Are you finding pairs of shoes? Some, yes.
:14:13. > :14:20.We can see one of the gold coins recovered. One of 32 and this is a
:14:21. > :14:28.gold angel. Pure gold. It is wafer-thin. Yes. I can pass you
:14:29. > :14:34.that. How much would this be worth today? It is difficult to put a
:14:35. > :14:39.value on things but for insurance purposes, probably ?50,000 because
:14:40. > :14:48.of the provenance of it. How many have you got? 32 in total. And here
:14:49. > :14:52.are some nit combs. Most of the crew would have had their own nit comb
:14:53. > :14:59.for removing head lice and nits and cut from a single piece of boxwood.
:15:00. > :15:04.Some of these were found in the pockets of the leather waistcoats of
:15:05. > :15:09.the individual. You are not going to tell me the nits are still there?
:15:10. > :15:18.You can actually still see some of the nits in that one. And then the
:15:19. > :15:30.longbows. Wonderful longbows. 140 in total, and in remarkable condition.
:15:31. > :15:33.So many people look at these and think they are replicas, because
:15:34. > :15:42.they do not believe they are the real thing.
:15:43. > :15:45.Weapons, clothing and personal possessions - threads which lead us
:15:46. > :15:57.to the men who served aboard Henry's flagship, . Four centuries after the
:15:58. > :16:01.crew were lost, we can begin to understand how they lived and how
:16:02. > :16:05.they fought. The idea to give people access to
:16:06. > :16:08.this is to pick out some key figures in the Mary Rose story, for example,
:16:09. > :16:15.the master gunner, the surgeon, the carpenter. A certain number of
:16:16. > :16:18.chests have been found where it is quite obvious who was the owner of
:16:19. > :16:25.that chest. The barber surgeon has all his medical equipment. In some
:16:26. > :16:31.cases, bodies were found which had clothing that would identify them as
:16:32. > :16:34.archers, perhaps, or Gunners. By assembling all that material
:16:35. > :16:45.together, you can tell the story of that person. You can have a case
:16:46. > :16:48.dedicated to the man. He may have had a match for lighting the gun,
:16:49. > :16:55.but he also had a gambling dice in his pocket. Through that method, he
:16:56. > :17:02.actually came to life. We all know what people are most interested in
:17:03. > :17:05.in museums are other people. The actor Robert Hardy, who shares a
:17:06. > :17:09.life of performance with a passion for archery, has helped research the
:17:10. > :17:13.men who made and fired the huge longbows. This one I have in my hand
:17:14. > :17:21.is the lower end of the range of the Mary Rose bows. Behind in the cases
:17:22. > :17:28.there are some 170 lbs draw weight bows. That is the actual weight in
:17:29. > :17:35.poundage when you are fully drawing the bow. I am not the greatest
:17:36. > :17:39.archer in the world, but I suffer from a lot of rickety bones and hard
:17:40. > :17:44.tendons, just from the amount of archery I do. What those boys,
:17:45. > :17:55.pulling these enormous weights, and pulling them for life and death...
:17:56. > :18:01.The remains of 179 people were recovered from the wreck site, just
:18:02. > :18:09.under half the crew. For the first time, visitors to the Mary Rose will
:18:10. > :18:17.meet some of them face-to-face. The first stage was to produce a
:18:18. > :18:20.mirror image of the original skull. Once the skulls have been scanned,
:18:21. > :18:23.you can use the software that is available which can then fill any
:18:24. > :18:31.gaps which may occur from areas you cannot reach. With this skulll, it
:18:32. > :18:35.is difficult to get right into the eye sockets. From there, you can
:18:36. > :18:39.move it on to get right into the eye sockets. From there, you can move it
:18:40. > :18:42.onto a 3D printer, which will print out a fantastic material, that is
:18:43. > :18:45.laid down in layers, about 0.2 of a millimetre thick each time. It
:18:46. > :18:50.builds up a representation of the skull.
:18:51. > :19:00.Stage two took the replica skull across the North Sea to a tiny
:19:01. > :19:05.studio. A studio on the outskirts of Stockholm.
:19:06. > :19:11.Here, Oscar Nielsen breathes and an canny life into old bones. His
:19:12. > :19:17.patient fingers add muscles and facial features. His artist's eye
:19:18. > :19:27.creating the skin tones and the tiny details which combine to bring
:19:28. > :19:30.another person into the room. First I want to know about the
:19:31. > :19:34.history of the time, so I tried to investigate as much material as I
:19:35. > :19:41.can read, to know more about the time and the era. I want to know as
:19:42. > :19:50.much as possible about the skeletons found on the ship. It is quite
:19:51. > :19:57.surprising to find that all of those men that I worked with here, nine of
:19:58. > :20:04.them, were quite young. Some of them just in their 20s. Even though they
:20:05. > :20:10.are so young, they have severe traumas and stress on the skeleton,
:20:11. > :20:15.coming from hard labour. Like this guy, who is supposedly an archer. He
:20:16. > :20:27.had severe stress from training with the bow. I think he was like 25 when
:20:28. > :20:28.he drowned. But if he had been living till he was 50 or something,
:20:29. > :20:45.he would be crippled, probably. Back in Portsmouth, the pressure was
:20:46. > :20:55.on, with the building virtually complete. Thousands of exhibits were
:20:56. > :20:59.wending their way to display cases. Firstly, we are getting as much of
:21:00. > :21:04.the work done before we get to the museum. All the mounting, all the
:21:05. > :21:07.design and layout of where the objects go, and trying to get them
:21:08. > :21:13.boxed up and sorted into specific groups. So we go into the store room
:21:14. > :21:20.and know that this is case one, or case two. So then they have the
:21:21. > :21:30.drawings ready and everything else they need.
:21:31. > :21:34.Give or take, we've got about 14,000 to 15,000 items. A lot of the
:21:35. > :21:38.artefacts have sections missing, which we replaced with frosted
:21:39. > :21:41.Perspex. This gives the public an idea of the size, shape and length.
:21:42. > :21:49.We cannot physically glue them together. We have to heat it, and
:21:50. > :21:59.mould it and shape it to the article we are trying to support. This is
:22:00. > :22:02.like a moleskin, which will protect the artefact from any scratches or
:22:03. > :22:03.scrapes from the plastic itself, and also stops them slipping, because
:22:04. > :22:16.it's got a bit of grip. Opening Day is on the horizon. There
:22:17. > :22:19.is one more milestone moment. 30 years after they began treating the
:22:20. > :22:30.Mary Rose, the conservation team have decided that the sprays can be
:22:31. > :22:33.turned off. There is now enough preservative in the hull, the drying
:22:34. > :22:39.process can start. At the moment, it is about 30 degrees and 90%
:22:40. > :22:43.humidity. There is also things coming out of the wood, which is why
:22:44. > :22:49.we wear the mask, and really there is the unknown element of what is
:22:50. > :22:52.developing there. Once it goes off, we will have temporary dehumidifiers
:22:53. > :22:58.which go along the scaffolding here. The idea is to get it down to 54%
:22:59. > :23:10.and 18 or 19 degrees. We should be there within a day or so.
:23:11. > :23:25.Loud and clear. We have just turned the sprays off.
:23:26. > :23:30.This is a momentous occasion for the Mary Rose. We have been spraying for
:23:31. > :23:33.over 30 years. So many people involved in the project, who have
:23:34. > :23:36.contributed over the years. It is a really exciting thing to see. Now we
:23:37. > :23:42.are ready for the next phase and what that brings.
:23:43. > :23:45.For years, this was the image of the Mary Rose that visitors to home with
:23:46. > :23:52.them. A remarkable discovery, but a dead ship. All that has changed. The
:23:53. > :23:55.long months of research, restoration and reconstruction have allowed us
:23:56. > :24:01.to see the missing half of the Mary Rose. The ship has come back to
:24:02. > :24:15.life. The time for preparation and
:24:16. > :24:27.rehearsal is over. The Mary Rose is open for business.
:24:28. > :24:30.There are people going round with tears in their eyes. The people who
:24:31. > :24:35.dived on it, who never thought this would happen. Yet here it is
:24:36. > :24:39.happening. The Mary Rose deserves it, the country deserves it, and all
:24:40. > :24:42.the people who are putting the work in our going around crying. It is
:24:43. > :24:47.wonderful to see the ship come alive. We have related the man to
:24:48. > :24:52.the object and to the ship on which he fought and served.
:24:53. > :24:56.A page has turned, but we still have a great deal to learn about the Mary
:24:57. > :25:03.Rose, her crew, their lives, and their death. This story is far from
:25:04. > :25:08.over. We actually know the meal that these
:25:09. > :25:10.people had just eaten. We know that the surgeon was attending to
:25:11. > :25:15.somebody, because he had been away from his cabin at that early stage
:25:16. > :25:22.of the journey. We know what was in people's pockets.
:25:23. > :25:29.There was that terrible moment of sinking, and the silence. 450 years
:25:30. > :25:32.below the waves, and then brought up with this miracle of restoration, so
:25:33. > :25:58.we can see it and experience it again.
:25:59. > :26:06.Hello. At least the weather is quieting down for Christmas Day in
:26:07. > :26:13.self, the storm showing definite signs of easing. There is strong
:26:14. > :26:21.wind across northern parts but that also will ease as we go through
:26:22. > :26:23.tonight. Across England and Wales we have right wind but also some