HMS Namur was a 90-gun second-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Chatham Dockyard to the draught specified by the 1745 Establishment as amended in 1750, and launched on 3 March 1756.

While repurposing of ship timbers for structural purposes ashore was very common, the rediscovered timbers of the Namur are rare in being entirely unmodified, still bearing original carpenter's marks, traces of red paint common to Royal Navy warship lower deck interiors of the period, numbers denoting sailor's hammock berths, hammock hooks and lengths of oakum.

The presence of many superfluous lengths of timber in and under the new workshop floor and their unaltered condition has been suggested as a deliberate form of preservation by workers at the Dockyard at the time, in recognition of the fame of the Namur and its prestigious service record.

It is possible that the preservation and hiding of as much fabric as possible from the Namur was officially sanctioned by the Captain Superintendent of Chatham Dockyard, James Alexander Gordon, who had served on the ship during the Battle of Cape St. Vincent in 1797.

[11] The restored timbers form the centerpiece of the "Command of the Oceans" gallery at the Chatham Historic Dockyard museum opened in 2016.