THE FINAL journey of Queen Victoria will be commemorated with a special funeral service in Gosport.

The centenary of Victoria's death will be marked with a ceremony and procession organised by Gosport council on Friday, February 2 to remember her death on January 22, 1901.

The service will also mark the passing of the old and the dawning of a new era at Royal Clarence Yard.

The disused former Royal Navy docks was granted royal status in its title on the wishes of the queen after she demanded a station on the quayside so she could board her yacht to sail to Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight.

A major housing and leisure complex will transform the docks, which will be the site of the service held by the Rev Peter Wadsworth and Captain Lynda Howe, Mayor Aleck Hayward's chaplain, and witnessed by children from Newton School, Gosport.

The children will be in Victorian costume like their forebears who watched the queen's body being taken in a coffin from her yacht to the train for a state funeral in London.

Victoria's body was brought ashore in her yacht, the Alberta, on Friday, February 1, 1901. A flotilla crossed the Solent with the yacht and her son Edward VII travelled to the Isle of Wight to oversee the transfer of her body.

The service will take place at exactly the time the original train departed. The children, dignitaries and HMS Sultan shore base volunteer band will proceed to the docks while the firing of a tribute gun will be carried out by the HMS Dolphin volunteer cadet corps of Fort Blockhouse.

Gosport council leader Peter Edgar said: "We hope this commemoration service will highlight the historic importance of Royal Clarence Yard and demonstrate that its pending development must always reflect this.

"Also, because of the new buildings, today's youngsters will have access to an area denied to former generations of residents, giving them a chance to discover and enjoy more of this wonderful waterfront."