A display at the heart of the Museum

The Upper Deck of the National Maritime Museum

Location: Neptune Court, National Maritime Museum, floor two 2 - see floor plans.

This display provides access to over 400 objects, many of which have never been seen by the public. Placed at the heart of the National Maritime Museum (NMM), the Upper Deck of Neptune Court is a great starting point for visitors to explore the Museum and discover many of its treasures.

Corporate event on the Upper Deck during the evening Paul bakery, located adjacent to the new display, is the perfect place to relax and take a break whilst enjoying the superb vista. Find out more about eating out at the Museum.

In the evenings the entire Upper Deck can be transformed in to a unique entertainment space. Seating up to 500 guests this new area is one of London's most exclusive venues for private parties or corporate events.

Visit our Corporate private hire pages to find out more.

A silver wine set presented to Captain John Hewett of the Britannia Steamship by the passengers. Inscribed: 'Presented to Capt. John Hewett of the Britannia Steamship by the passengers, January 1842' (the passengers included Charles Dickens).The Museum's diverse collections trace Britain's enduring relationship with the sea and seafaring and chart the role of ships and the instruments and techniques of navigation. Most of all, they celebrate the human figures whose courage, innovation and skills lie at the heart of our nation's economic, cultural and social history. The items on display in the Upper Deck gallery have been liberated from reserve stores to narrate evocative tales and offer pointers to our galleries and other sources of information.

Astrolabes in the Upper Deck gallery Objects on display include:

• swords
• astrolabes
• globes
• busts
• medals
• silverware
• navigational instruments.

One of the highlights is the Britannia wine set. Following a particularly stormy transatlantic voyage to Boston in 1842, the passengers of the steamship Britannia presented her captain with this silver wine set 'as a feeble token of their lasting gratitude'. Charles Dickens was secretary of the organizing committee and you can see his name inscribed on the edge of the plate.

All the objects have been carefully chosen to withstand the environment within Neptune Court. Special canopies have been designed to shade the showcases and the objects inside and to emphasize the architectural surroundings and the stunning glass roof.

Objects and people

Maghreb nimcha, which belonged to Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Hopsonn (1642–1717).All objects, mundane or extraordinary, have a story to tell: but all stories imply a listener as well as a speaker. Museums are a place of dialogue between objects and people.

The meanings of museum objects are only what people see in them, or can be helped to see. A modern-day visitor's understanding of an object is usually different from that of its maker and original user or owner.

To commemorate the Bombardment of Algiers, 27 August 1816, Lord Exmouth, Admiral Edward Pellew, was presented with this intricate silver-gilt sculpture depicting the bombardment by the officers who served under him. According to the inscription, through the actions of Exmouth and his men 'the great cause of Christian freedom was bravely fought and nobly accomplished'. The sculpture and Exmouth's personal papers form part of the Museum's collections).

In museums, meanings are also conveyed by one object's relation to another, or by accompanying explanation. Meanings of objects are potentially limitless as every visitor has their own unique viewpoint and understanding.

The objects on display are functional and decorative, rare and workaday. They date from about AD 1230 to the mid-20th century. The Museum's themes of 'the sea, ships, time and the stars' are all represented, although only by robust items suited to the variable climate and bright light of the courtyard.

A maritime museum in Britain

Full-hull model of the Mavoureen (1871). Official seafaring collections in 19th-century Britain were Royal Naval ones. The most important was the 'Naval Gallery’ of portraits, paintings and relics in the Painted Hall of the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich. This collection celebrated Britain’s naval triumphs and heroes. By the 1850s it had become a focus for interest in Nelson in particular and attracted over 50,000 visitors a year.

Celestial goblet globe. Astronomical details on the sphere show a labelled magnitude table beneath Camelopardalis. The Magellanic clouds are labelled. A total of three stars and three star groups are named. The 48 Ptolemaic constellations and four of the non-Ptolemaic constellations are drawn. Four of the southern constellations are drawn as well as 11 of the 12 southern constellations of Plancius. When the Hospital became the Royal Naval College in 1873, a separate 'Royal Naval Museum' joined the Gallery there. The museum was based round the Admiralty’s fine collection of ship models and was also open to the public.

As naval rivalry increased in the 1890s, especially with Germany, the study of naval history gained new academic status. There were also proposals to found a proper 'national’ naval museum. Some championed Greenwich as a location: others preferred central London, 'the heart of Empire'.

However, it was only after the First World War – when Britain's sea-trading and naval power was seriously challenged – that a national seafaring museum was established.

All about the sea

In the 1920s, an increasing tide of European art and artefacts was flooding to America. A wealthy Scottish ship owner, James Caird, made it his mission to secure and celebrate important aspects of Britain’s seafaring heritage.

Equinoctial dial In 1933 he offered to endow a 'national naval and nautical museum' with funding and with collections on all aspects of British maritime history. This Museum was created by Act of Parliament in 1934 and opened here, in the former Greenwich Hospital School buildings, in 1937.

There are over 2.5 million items in the Museum, including most from the former Naval Gallery and museum in the Old Royal Naval College. There are a million ship plans, a million photographs, 100,000 books, 70,000 prints and drawings, 90,000 sea charts, 4000 oil paintings, 3000 scientific and navigational instruments, 4000 models, more than 6 km of manuscripts and over 50,000 other items. Over 100 boats are now on loan to the National Maritime Museum Cornwall at Falmouth.

Astronomical tableThe 17th century Queen's House, an architectural centrepiece by Inigo Jones, attracts interest in its own right and displays aspects of the Museum's extensive art collection. In the 1950s, the famous Royal Observatory became part of the Museum. It is now a showcase for the collections on time and the history of astronomy, both central to navigation and British maritime exploration of the world.

Find out more about the history of the National Maritime Museum, the Queen's House and the Royal Observatory.

Britain and the sea

Medal commemorating the discovery of Hawaii by Captain James Cook. Obverse: Bust of Captain Cook; H.M.S. 'Resolution' under sail (centre). Legend: 'CAPTAIN JAMES COOK DISCOVERER OF HAWAII'. Inscription: 'JAN. 18. 1778'. Britain has an unrivalled seafaring record – in exploration, colonization, migration, trade and war. We adopted yachting from the Dutch in the 17th century, invented the popular concept of 'the seaside' in the 19th and today have thousands of leisure sailors 'mucking about in boats', with many racing in competitively among the world's best.

The Royal Navy, though smaller than ever, is still the largest in Europe. Traditions passed down through generations, inherited by such figures as Nelson, span more than 400 years.

Tea urn. Inscription on the side above the spout: 'PRESENTED by the Committee for encouraging the Capture of French Privateers TO CAPT. TOMLINSON July 8th 1796'. The UK registered merchant fleet has reduced in size too, responding to global economic pressures. Shipping has moved away from the heart of historic port cities to automated cargo terminals, with deep-water approaches and better transport links. Our once-vast shipbuilding industry has also vanished in a lifetime. A car ferry, or perhaps a cruise liner, may be the only ship many of us ever experience.

Yet Britain remains an island: 95% of all our international trade still travels by sea and London – on the Greenwich meridian – lies at the hub of world shipping and sea commerce in an age of 24-hour globalized business.

Our culture, national identity and international outlook are all strongly coloured by our wealth-creating, seafaring past – and present.

Horizontal sun and moon pedestal dial Britain remains at heart a maritime nation.

Curiosities and curators

Museums trace their origins back to the 15th and 16th centuries, when Europeans rediscovered the culture of ancient Greece and Rome, and first encountered very different societies through trans-oceanic voyages.

Astrolabe Early collections ranged from art and antiquities to 'cabinets of curiosities' – accumulations of natural wonders and works of human ingenuity. Collecting and studying such objects was a way of making sense of an increasingly complex world.

The 18th century age of Enlightenment saw the first attempts to organize expanding knowledge on scientific principles. 'Cabinet' collections led to the development of museums – places dedicated to collecting and classifying objects to explain the natural world and the development of human societies. The British Museum, founded in 1753, was a pioneering example and a model for others.

Collective memory

Museums mirror the cultures that create and support them, both in the long term and in more temporary ways. They convey and illustrate for people a mass of information, varied meanings and collective memory about the objects they preserve.

This is a brass refractor telescope by Dollond on an equatorial mounting by Haupois. This unusual mounting consists of two brass circles and two brass pillars set at right angles to one another and attached to a supporting pillar. The telescope can be pivoted to face any direction.Museums are products of scientific civilization – societies that have developed a rational, observational approach in attempting to understand all aspects of existence, past and present. They show us material ranging from the pre-human past to aspects of our own time. The objects that they hold help us retrieve the actions and thoughts – good or bad – of previous generations.

Museums can be tools of propaganda and social control, but in free societies they present information in a balanced manner, without political interference. Even so, museums should challenge comfortable ideas and may provoke passionate responses. It is their role to interpret and question as well as to display and celebrate.