Scale: 1:48. A contemporary full hull model of the 131-gun single-screw ship HMS ‘Marlborough’ (1855), complete with stump masts, figurehead, a full set of anchors and single funnel. It is mounted on its original wooden baseboard and two sections of the deck lift away to reveal the interior layout and internal construction of the hull and decks. Laid down as a sailing ship, the ‘Marlborough’ was lengthened and adapted for auxiliary screw propulsion during the course of its construction. It was launched at Portsmouth dockyard on 31 July 1855 and completed three months later measuring 245 feet along the gun deck by 61 feet in the beam.

Although not the largest wooden ship of the line ever designed, it was the largest to serve in the Royal Navy as an effective man-of-war, and may be regarded as representing the peak of the development of its type. From 1858–64 the ‘Marlborough’ served in the Mediterranean, but was later removed from service becoming an engineering school in 1877. In 1904, as ‘Vernon II’, it became part of the torpedo school centred on HMS 'Vernon’. In 1923 when 'Vernon' became a shore establishment, the ‘Marlborough’ was sold but was not to suffer the indignity of being broken up. Whilst under tow in the Channel in the late evening of 28 November 1924, it capsized and sank.