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The Great Britain Guide

Maritime museums · London

HMS President

♿ Wheelchair: limited

HMS President in England London, United Kingdom.

Office Buildings Victoria Embankment, Blackfriars - geograph.org.uk - 3087632

Paul Gillett — CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons licence

Plan your visit

Typical visit
2 h–3 h
  • Family-friendly
  • Limited wheelchair access

About

HMS President is a preserved museum ship in England London, United Kingdom — a vessel of historic significance preserved as a public visitor attraction. Britain's museum ships span Tudor warships (Mary Rose), tea clippers (Cutty Sark), Victorian battleships (HMS Warrior) and 20th-century submarines.

Photo gallery

From the Wikipedia article

HMS President (formerly HMS Saxifrage) is a retired Flower-class Q-ship that was launched in 1918. She was renamed HMS President in 1922 and moored permanently on the Thames as a Royal Navy Reserve drill ship. In 1988 she was sold to private owners and, having changed hands twice, served as a venue for conferences and functions as well as the offices for a number of media companies. She has since been moved to Chatham on the Medway in Kent since 2016, where she was abandoned in 2022. She had the suffix "(1918)" added to her name in order to distinguish her from HMS President, the Royal Naval Reserve base in St Katharine Docks. She is one of the last three surviving Royal Navy warships of the First World War. She is also the sole representative of the first type of purpose built anti-submarine vessels, and is the ancestor of World War II convoy escort sloops, which evolved into modern anti-submarine frigates.

Excerpt from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0. See the source article linked in Sources below.

Background

Architecture

HMS President was built as an Anchusa-type . These were built between 1916 and 1918 as submarine hunters disguised to look like merchant ships, while carrying concealed 4-inch and 12-pounder naval guns. U-boats would dive at the sight of a naval warship, and the success of the Q-ships, or 'mystery ships' – converted merchantmen with hidden guns – led to the building of these specialised naval vessels for the same purpose. It was intended that a U-boat captain, unwilling to expend a precious torpedo on a small coastal merchantman, would surface to sink it by gunfire. As the submarine closed for the kill, the Q-ship would reveal her hidden guns and counterattack while the U-boat was at its…

Sourced from Wikipedia under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Coordinates
51.5106, -0.1083
Parish
City of London, unparished area
Postcode
EC4Y 0HA
Parliamentary constituency
Cities of London and Westminster

Sources

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Frequently asked questions

Where is HMS President?
HMS President is in London, in the United Kingdom — coordinates 51.5106°, -0.1083°.
Is HMS President wheelchair accessible?
Partially — OpenStreetMap notes limited wheelchair access at HMS President. Check ahead for specific facilities.