There's a wealth of information on the 33-acre Vernon site, as it has continued to transform itself from one significant role into another in over eight hundred years of continued use. In that era there have been many owners, many functions and many occupiers of the land adjacent to the canal supplying the King's Mill in Portsmouth!

 

There are many personal, family, serving branch and military connections with HMS Vernon, as yet to be fully documented in this website: none is stronger than the Royal Family's with the current generations strongly represented. From King Richard I in 1194, who let out the land on which HMS Vernon was later built, to King Henry VIII who strengthened the defences, in 1526; from the Duke of Clarence, who laid the foundation stone of Vulcan Building in 1811 (now the Loch Fyne Seafood Restaurant), to HRH The Prince of Wales - Prince Charles was Commanding Officer of HMS Bronington in 1976, operating out of Vernon Creek. Prince Andrew, as the Commanding Officer of HMS Cottesmore in 1990, was trained there and made a port visit occasionally during his time in command. Even now, Prince Harry (although serving as an army officer and training to be a helicopter pilot), as Commodore-In-Chief of Small Ships and Diving has an active connection with the two branches behind the Project Vernon campaign - Minewarfare and Diving. These two specialisations both evolved from HMS Vernon's previous incumbents dating back to Victorian times.

A useful historical summary may be found at the Gunwharf Quays web site; also, the MCDOA pages contain many interesting insights to the more recent martime heritage.