NELSON Wardroom to be sold off

MOD has announced the NELSON wardroom is to be sold off - shame about the vaguely historic bit full of pictures of Admirals no one can remember. Thank christ the rest of it is going, the place is an utter dive that needs to be put out of its misery ASAP.

 

Given it's often difficult to get accommodation when visiting the Pompey area, are they planning on building Officer accommodation elsewhere on the site?

 

They took the tot off the sailors,it's only right that the Nelson Wardroom is preserved and the new generation of officers accommodated in it.
Tit for Tat so to speak, loosing the tot hurt more than retaining a wardroom

 

Hush now child, you know the RN encourage thinking like that!

 

The social programme through to the end of March 2017 has been published. Not that that binds anything.

They may be long dead but they scare the crap out of me.

 

I'd like to see how this is dealt with. I know a Lt who was recently drafted to NCHQ, was about 30th on the waiting list for a cabin in Excellent. Nelson WR wouldn't accommodate him as they prioritised for HMNB so he "fortunately" got a cabin in Collingwood but Blockhouse was the next best option. In 9 months he only moved up the Excellent waiting list about 10 places.

By all accounts the cabins in Nelson are proper gash!

 

Interesting to see it made the news in the Porridge Cannon Clarion, but not yet in the Pompey Bugle : http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14212999.MOD_names_12_military_sites_to_be_sold_off_for_building_of_homes/

 

The University have been after it for years - short term profit, long term loss on the Navys part. Soon we'll be like the Australians offering only transit accommodation and giving subsidies to everyone else to live out.

 

The place must be like a lavatory with cash being tipped down it.

Standby for calls for it to be 'preserved as a museum' (as if Pompey hasn't got enough failing museums) and what a shame it is for such a wonderful building to be 'sold off to the cheapest bidder'.

Maybe the gains made from selling the bloody place can be steered back into creating accomodation on the Nelson site itself in place of the old, crappy relics they have which currently house lodger units and businesses. All the stuff down the back end where RNSETT used to lurk, for example.

levers

 

I must have spun this one before, but....

In 2005, there was the International Fleet Review - someone had invited half the world's brass to come and party down in Portsmouth, and decided that this would be achieved by chucking out all the livers in for a couple of weeks and putting them in hotels. At this point I was living in transit accom in the East Annex - except that I was a permanent liver in (working in the dockyard) and there wasn't anywhere else. There were about 30 of us in the leper colony, sharing one functioning shower between all of us and with paint peeling off in great sheets - the record in the heads was a strip over a foot wide and about 3 foot long which just dangled for over 12 months....

Anyway, 1SL decided he'd come down and tour the Portsmouth accommodation so he could decide which Admiral was going to be put where. The cabins in the old bit were duly assigned (amid much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the two-and-a-halfs/three ringers billeted there. As I remember it he literally got half way across the "bridge" to the leper colony before saying something like "I've seen enough", turning on his heel and leaving. Our notice to move was rescinded shortly afterwards. We just weren't allowed to use the coffee room, dining room, or bar for a week or so. So, you know, any of the facilities except our beds. Good enough for lieutenants, not good enough for visitors...

Slightly sorry to see the place go (stand fast the EA), the corridor of admirals has been noted, but I spent far too much time and salary in the blind eye bar with pints of HSB and playing snooker. On the other hand, the buzz I've heard is that this is going to see the ONA coming back....

 

Nelson Wardroom is, fortunately, Grade II Listed and there are other problems facing anyone trying to 'develop' it.

Quite apart from the distinguished Edwardian exterior, there are, for instance, the Wylie murals in the main mess (another set in Dolphin Wardroom).

I have a feeling we have been round this buoy before.

 

Don't get me wrong - I want to see the building and it's relics preserved or restored somehow. British history is history, when all is said and done.

But the mob is strapped for cash. It can't maintain big old buildings like that any more without it leveraging the taxpayer. I'd rather see functioning warships and happy, well trained and motivated sailors at sea than officers living in opulent, splendid old mansions.

Get some sawdust and spit chuck-ups erested round the back of RNSETT and get the great and the good in there. Life is more about Netflix and beers in cabins across the piece these days than mahogany bars and G&Ts, innit?

pommpey

 

Believe it when you see it. My little birds tell me that up to 25% of the military training estate is earmarked to be converted into houses for our burgeoning population. Amongst those earmarked is St Athan. In a previous life I sat on a committee that was deciding what to do with the Mess Silver from a top secret engineering training facility in the Gosport area before DTR 1 was shitcanned and we all stood easy again. It's still there....

WRT Blockhouse, all ranks at the moment are messing out of the Wardroom because the SRs and JRs Messes canteens have been condemned. I'm told apparently gunk was dripping out of the Air Con into the food.

Some of these sites will be impossible to use because the remediation costs will be too high. For example RAF St Mawgan, contaminated with Lancaster Bombers etc etc.

 

This is the start of a slippery slope - a lot of land is going to go as Trainer notes, and we'll see consolidation of the Estate into smaller more developed areas. The Mess Annex at NELSON was truly bloody awful - the only thing worse was going into Britannia block one weekend, which was like a quasi feral jungle.

To be honest, I'd happily see another Vanguard block built, then use the ONA for messing and a bar. Mess life is so different these days that its hard to justify the need for NELSON W/R beyond overflow carparking. The croquet pitch is nice though

 

I too was here when Metrix and MC3 were duking it out as to who was getting 'The Big Contract' and where it was (ahem ... St Athan) going to be placed. One delegation looked at the wardroom at that establishment, I was their escort/advisor

"What is this place?" said one suit, an estate assets advisory pencil-neck or summat
"It's the wardroom. The officer's mess, incorporating the Admiralty Interview Board. Originally part of the airfield. Listed building."
"Oh yeah?" he said flatly. "That'll have to go."
"What's this field?"
"It's the polo field. The local community have massive buy-in with this piece of green area for sports and local community events."
"Yeah. We'll be building on that, probably."
"Good luck with that!"

They were also similarly blank faced at the two Palmerstonian Forts onsite and the rest of the reassigned historic real estate. It was a bit of an eye opener. They seemed set on levelling the whole area and stretching it across the road into Browndown.

levers

 

Brit Block? Bloody luxury - for the true Blade Runner-meets-Threads experience you should have tried Saumarez block....

 

Saumarez Block only had the miss-pleasure once during the inter-service Tug Of War tournament (1994). That was enough, my RAF oppo's were not too impressed (yes I tugged for the crabs!!! )

 

my intro to Saumarez was narrowly being missed by a tv that had been launched from an eighth floor window... that and a very bored killick introducing us to the block with 2 words of advice:

1) don't swamp your pit if you can swamp someone else's
2) if you're not in bed by 0200, come home

at this point one of us pointed out that we were wardroom overspill and the poor chap did some quite spectacular backpedalling....

 

The relics are well preserved. Wine is cheap and plentiful.

 

Saumarez and Keppel were true slums, of the first order. The number of times tellies, burning refuse and sadly, sometimes people made the downward drop was legendary. If a fire took hold in one of thos buildings, it would have killed hundreds.

The block office of Saumarez was the one. The scallywags who ran the block office used to have a hand-held loud hailer which had 'WHERE'S YOUR BERET?' magic markered on the side. If you happened to mosey by on your way to scran, sans headgear, you got the 'WHERE'S YOUR BERET?' from them.

I think I have spun the dit on here from 1985 about Princess Anne visiting Nelson and the RAF dog handler being billetted in the downstairs transit mess in Keppel the night before on here I think. Suffice to say, it was a classic GDNSAAC* special.

levers

*GDNSAAC = Good Dit, No S***, Ask Any C***