HMS Unicorn

Location: S Victoria Dock Rd, Dundee DD1 3BP
Opening times: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday 10.00am to 4.00pm.
Entry: Adult £9.20, child £4.60 (under 5s free, concession £8.00, family tickets from £15.90
Access: Parking on street, charges apply.

The return in 1992 of the polar expedition ship RRS Discovery to her hometown was a marketer’s dream. Dundee was soon rebranded as “the City of Discovery”, a cleverly ambiguous slogan that was later superseded by “One City, Many Discoveries”. Both inextricably linked city and ship, and the latter became one of Dundee’s key tourist attractions.

But Dundee is also home to another historic ship, the HMS Unicorn, a Royal Navy 46-gun frigate launched in 1824. While it isn’t associated with the stiff upper lip heroics of the Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton variety, it has its own unique claim to fame as, according to its website, it is “the most original old ship in the world”, meaning that while there are older surviving ships, none of them retain as much of their original fabric as the Unicorn. 90% of what you see today is exactly what was laid down at Chatham Dockyard in Kent between 1822 and 1824. By way of comparison, it is estimated that only 17 to 20% of HMS Victory is original 1765 timber, with approximately one-third of that ship being replaced within of thirteen years of its launch.

*HMS Unicorn, one of Dundee’s oldest landmarks.*

The website also claims the Unicorn is one of the six oldest ships in the world, which is tres nifty, but alas it doesn’t define criteria. Wikipedia lists dozens of vessels older than the Unicorn, but some of these (canoes and suchlike) can presumably be discounted as being too small to be ships, and I assume the likes of the Mary Rose and the five ships at the Viking Ship Museum at Roskilde, Denmark – which are listed by Wiki – are too incomplete to make the cut. All of which is a roundabout way of saying I have no idea what the five older ships are, and there’s possibly more than five.

The Unicorn is so well preserved because, well, basically it didn’t do anything. It didn’t go to on expeditions like the Discovery, and it didn’t go to war like the Victory. Being part of the reserve fleet it just kind of sat there, ‘there’ being Chatham Dockyard from 1822 to 1873, with a five-year secondment at Woolwich Arsenal as a powder hulk. She then enjoyed her one-and-only voyage when she was towed from Sheerness to Dundee in 1873 by the paddle steamer Salamander. In Dundee, she was used as a training ship from her arrival right up to, incredibly, the 1960s, meaning that she served from Industrial Revolution through to the Cold War. Not bad for a ship that never sailed.

*The website describes the* Unicorn’s design best, stating it “combines two great eras of shipbuilding – the traditional wooden craftmanship of the 18^th century and the emerging iron technology of the 19^th century”. *The building in the background is the Clock Tower. Originally built as a warehouse in 1877, it was converted into twelve apartments in the early 21^st century.*

*The* Unicorn has four decks, the upper deck, the gun deck, the mess deck, and the orlop deck. This is the upper deck, with the ship’s wheel. The model of the ship on the right is speculative as, being a reserve ship only, the Unicorn *was never fitted with proper seagoing masts. The upper two decks contain exhibitions related to the ship, such as ‘Robert Seppings: Designing the* Unicorn‘ (about the man who, well, you can probably guess the rest) and ‘Unicorn’s Treasures’, which tells the story of the ship through items such as logbooks, photographs and ceremonial objects.

*The gun deck, which is also the deck where visitors come on board.*

*The* *Mess Deck, where the sailors would eat and sleep.*

The lower or orlop deck, with the wing on the left and the hold on the right. I didn’t spend too much time down here as it’s only about four feet from ground to ceiling and i’m over six feet tall. Very uncomfy!

*The* Unicorn has always been roofed, another factor that contributed to its preservation. The original roof is still in place – it provides the ceiling of the upper deck – but it now has a modern cover on top. The lady that sold me my ticket told me that due to the modern cover’s shape and design they getting people coming aboard that think the Unicorn is a Chinese restaurant.

Destination or Diversion?

HMS Unicorn can be done in an hour so I would class it as a diversion rather than a destination, but as it is just a five or ten minute walk from many of Dundee’s other attractions (e.g. V&A Dundee, RRS Discovery and Discovery Point, the Tay Whale, the McManus Museum and Art Galleries, Dundee Museum of Transport) anyone planning on visiting the city should consider adding it to their itinerary.

Dundee has a third historic ship, the North Carr Lightship, which warned shipping of the North Carr rocks, a one-and-a-half mile sandstone reef located off the Fife Ness headland. Scotland’s last surviving lightship, she was launched in 1933 and decommissioned in 1975. She served as a museum for several years at Anstruther, before being bought and brought to Dundee in 2010. Unfortunately a lack of funding means that plans of renovating and repurposing her fell through, and she has been left to deteriorate. Hopefully she will be thrown a lifeline in the future as, like HMS Unicorn, the Discovery, the Sir Walter Scott, and the Tall Ship Glenlee, the North Carr Lightship forms part of Britain’s National Historic Fleet.

Destination or Diversion?

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply