Mary Rose closure deadline looms

An artist's cut-away impression of the new Mary Rose museum

Visitors have until Sunday afternoon to to see Henry VIII's warship the Mary Rose, before the exhibition closes while a new museum is built.

The ship will away from public view for three years until the new museum, housing the vessel and its artefacts, opens at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

The Heritage Lottery Fund awarded £21m to the Mary Rose Trust, which itself raised nearly £10m towards the project.

The new museum is being built alongside Nelson's flagship HMS Victory.

It will contain galleries running the length of the vessel to imitate the missing port side.

Loss of life

More than 60% of the collection of original artefacts, including uniforms, weaponry, medical instruments, eating utensils and silver tankards will be exhibited with atmospheric lighting to allow visitors to feel as though they are walking on board the ship.

Mary Rose sank after 34 years of service with the loss of more than 400 lives on 19 July 1545.

The hull of the ship was salvaged in 1982 and has been on display since.

The trust aims to complete the work by 2012, in time for the Olympics.

The ship will continue to be sprayed with preserving polyethylene glycol, a water-based wax solution, before being carefully dried.

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The Mary Rose has become such a popular attraction she needs a new home