New £15m museum charts history of Royal Marines

A new £15m museum charting more than 360 years of Royal Marines history is due to open in Portsmouth.

The Royal Marines Experience in the city's Historic Dockyard is the new home for the Royal Marines Museum, formerly based at Eastney before it closed in 2017.

Exhibits include all 10 Victoria Crosses awarded to the Royal Marines, while a Remembrance room allows families to reflect on those who lost their lives in service.

Matthew Sheldon, chief executive of Royal Navy Museums, said the new museum would be "the breathing heart of the Royal Marines community".

The former Royal Marines Museum closed due to the "irreversible deterioration" of its previous home at Eastney Barracks.

The new exhibition, in the 1840s Grade II-listed Boathouse 6 in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, was previously scheduled to open in 2019 and has seen estimated costs rise from £10m to about £15m.

In May 2025, the project was awarded £4.4m of lottery funding after a previous £13m lottery bid was refused.

The previous attraction at Eastney received about 35,000 visitors a year. It is hoped being in the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard complex, which boasts 600,000 visitors a year, will boost numbers.

The new exhibition replaces the previous Action Stations Commando Experience at Boathouse 6.

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, the base for the National Museum of the Royal Navy, is already home to several naval attractions, including HMS Victory, The Mary Rose and HMS Warrior.

The Royal Marines Experience combines storytelling with hands-on activities, multimedia displays and immersive technology to tell the history of the Marines within the armed forces.

Sheldon said the new museum would "connect this story to more people".

"We want to do something new and exciting. We want to blur the lines between history and experience - what those individual Royal Marines have done and still do for us now.

"I really think people are going to love it.

"This is a critical story. We want this to be the breathing heart of the Royal Marines community."

Uniforms, medals, kit and weapons dating back through the history of the Royal Marines are on display.

Among hundreds of historical and modern artefacts is a Green beret worn by Marine WGC "Molly" MacPherson during the Falklands conflict.

Visitors can also try physical challenges, including testing their strength and stamina in activities such as press‑ups, pull‑ups, rope climbs and rucksack lifts, each guided by a digital instructor.

Charlie Mallett, who served as the Marines' first female bugler in 1997 and whose father was also a Royal Marine, had donated her uniform and bugle to the old museum. They are among the artefacts in the new display.

Speaking at a preview event before the official opening, she said: "To see it today when I walked it, I did get very emotional."

Peter Helsby, who served in the Royal Marines between 1965 and 1974, said: "It's a modern-day museum, it's brought in the future of the Royal Marines as well as the past.

"I would recommend it - it's absolutely spot-on."

He described the Remembrance room as "a lovely touch".

Andy Williams, who was a Marine for 20 years until 1989, said the exhibition "brought back tremendous memories".

"The museum is our storyteller.

"All of us are involved in that story and that's what they've captured - the story behind the men."