Demolition work has started on the Mary Rose Ship Hall in Portsmouth, Hampshire, which is making way for the development of a new £35m museum dedicated to the historic Tudor warship.

The ship itself at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard was withdrawn from public view on 20 September to allow work to start, which will see a boat-shaped museum building built over the dry dock containing the Mary Rose. A team including architects Wilkinson Eyre has designed the new attraction, which will imitate a section of the Mary Rose's missing port side and will enable visitors to view artefacts from galleries located on the same level as the ship's main deck.

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has contributed £21m towards the scheme, while a special programme of events and activities will be provided for the duration of the construction process due for completion in 2012. More than 19,000 artefacts raised from the bottom of the Solent will be put on show when the new museum opens to replace the existing Mary Rose Museum, which is located elsewhere on the Dockyard site.

Conservation work on the Mary Rose's hull is expected to be completed in 2016.