An interactive learning centre in Portsmouth for youngsters focusing on today’s Royal Navy has been given £900,000 to create a new science gallery.

Action Stations, in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, will install 35 new exhibits and displays looking at the technology which drives the modern Fleet, in particular propulsion, communications and navigation systems.

The money comes from the ReDiscover Fund, a spin-off of the Millennium Commission which provided some of the original funding for Action Stations.

“We are elated at being awarded such a magnificent grant and we look forward to offering our visitors a fantastic new science and technology experience,” said the General Manager at Action Stations, Barbara Barnes.

The new gallery, called Inter-Action, is due to open in the summer of 2005.

Meanwhile, another of the Historic Dockyard’s attractions, the Tudor warship Mary Rose, is hitting the road on a tour of the UK.

Not the wreck of Henry VIII’s flagship itself, but real and replica artefacts from the vessel, which lay on the sea bed of the Solent for more than 400 years, to enhance understanding of the ship and her age for people unable to visit the museum in Portsmouth.

Purpose-made ‘seamen chests’ have been sent around the country by courier firm DHL to schools – Tudor Britain is one of core subjects in the National Curriculum for pupils of junior-school age.

Among the items which pupils will find in the chests are wrist guards for archers, arrow spacers, a bleeding bowl, a peppermill and eating utensils.