Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNS) is one of four remaining naval shipyards in the nation. Centrally located about 50 miles from Boston, Massachusetts, Portland, Maine and Manchester, New Hampshire, at the southernmost tip of Maine, the Shipyard fully encompasses Seavey Island that sits at the mouth of the Piscataqua River. This federally-owned island is across the harbor from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with access to the mainland by two bridges that connect to Kittery, Maine. Portsmouth Naval Shipyard's primary mission is the overhaul, repair and modernization of LOS ANGELES Class submarines.
The ''Castle'' on the other side of the Piscataqua is not actually a castle or hotel. It is the site of the old Portsmouth Naval Prison at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
Strawberry Banke
The place that is today called Strawbery Banke has a long and rich history, stretching back three and a half centuries to the earliest years of English settlement in New England. In 1630 Englishmen chose this site for a plantation called Strawbery Banke, named for the profusion of wild berries they had found near the river. By the eighteenth century the site was a thriving waterfront neighborhood in animportant seaport called Portsmouth; in the nineteenth century it changed into an immigrant neighborhood named Puddle Dock; and by the latter half of the twentieth century it had recaptured its original name as an outdoor history museum. Throughout these centuries of change people lived and worked here, experiencing in a small, personal way, the major events and currents of America's history. Strawbery Banke, the museum, is dedicated to the study of the lives of these people and others who left their mark on Portsmouth's history.
