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Wooden Ships Classic Yacht Brokers

Traditional and classic boat sales.

Welcome to Wooden Ships. We are a renowned specialist classic yacht brokerage established for nearly 50 years and based in Dartmouth, Devon. We manage the sale and purchase of traditional and classic boats from clinker dinghies to large sailing ships and motor yachts. 

With expertise and experience gained from owning and sailing many different traditional boats, large and small, we are here to assist you in purchasing your yacht and giving guidance on caring for her. We have an interesting and varied range of classic yachts for sale .

With an in-depth knowledge of the industry, the people, and the boats, this family-run traditional yacht brokerage is the first place to come when purchasing or selling a classic vessel .

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Are you looking to buy or sell a classic wooden yacht?

Established at the heart of the boating community in Dartmouth, we assist buyers and sellers worldwide and provide the highest level of care and attention throughout every step of the process. We are a small but focused brokerage team with years of professional yachting experience complemented by strong sales and business skills. 

We always strive to offer the best impartial advice and manage a smooth sales process for buyers and sellers. If you would like to talk about classic boat sales, please come and speak to us . We would love to hear from you and discuss how we can help you find your perfect boat or find your boat’s next custodian. 

We have an unrivalled expert understanding of the very specialist classic boat market and offer the best advice on pricing points and any recommended pre and post-sale works, and we can place your boat in front of the right people.

We understand that owning a classic boat is a passion and a lifestyle choice, so whether you are buying or selling, we will always be here to assist you in any way we can.

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Fred Parker Motor Yacht

Brixham Sailing Trawler Gaff Ketch

17′ Clinker Motor Launch

26′ Cabin Boat

Gaff Cutter Golden Vanity

Percy Dalton Gaff Cutter

Arthur Robb Lion Class

Grand Banks 42

45′ Laurent Giles Bermudan Cutter

Camper and Nicholson Motor Launch

Laurent Giles Vertue V54

G.L. Watson Gaff Cutter

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How to Sell a Yacht

September 5th 2022

How to sell a classic yacht – 10 things to expect from your broker.   Selling a classic yacht can be daunting, but working with a broker can simp…

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Peter Gregson of Wooden Ships on wooden ships

You must go and see Peter Gregson one day, they used to tell me. So, in 2010, I did. This article, from CB269, is, basically, what the famous guru told me!

A few people over the years have told me to “go and see Peter Gregson”. The Dartmouth-based classic yacht broker seems to have a cult appeal among the many who know him – and speaking to Peter on the phone over the years, hearing his intimate knowledge of seemingly every yacht afloat, I formed a vision of a 120-year-old guru with bones of Burma teak.

Peter’s office, the sitting room of a former cottage shop on the steep hills of Dartmouth in south Devon, is in a state of disarray when I arrive – the builders have been. This is the nerve centre of Wooden Ships, the name of Peter’s brokerage, and I wonder how many buyers have sat here dreaming of Caribbean and Baltic odysseys – first-timers aflame with notions of secluded anchorages and high-seas adventures or old hands ready to sell up and swallow the anchor. Often, Peter has sold the boat to the eager novice and sold it for him again at the end; his record for one boat is five sales. Peter’s website, woodenships.co.uk, averages 19,000 hits a week and the phone rings throughout our meeting. Eavesdropping on these one-sided conversations is even more insightful than our chat.

The first call is from a first-time would-be-owner who’s fallen in love with a Folkboat (haven’t we all?). “It’s a good choice for a first boat,” Peter concurs on the phone. Then he finds out it’s engineless. “Where are you going to keep her?” Port Edgar. “On one of those pontoon berths? You’d be brave to do that without an engine. I’m not saying you couldn’t do it – but it would be tricky – and everyone would be watching you too. Let’s think about the Folkboat – but there are a couple of others I’d like you to see as well.” Pause… “We’ll get you on the water soon enough.”

Peter comes off the phone. “Beginner. I suppose he could use a paddle to come on and off the mooring,” he says. “We used to do that quite a bit – just paddle a boat on and off a mooring – it’s surprising what you can do with a paddle.” And then, true to fashion, the Gregson statement that has, to those who know him, become his trademark. “Sold that boat to her owner 20 years ago.”

It’s a rather stunning display of know-ledge, attitude and laissez-faire good sense. And I can only ask bluntly, “Do you talk to everyone like that?” “No,” he replies. “It’s how I work. Not everyone does.”

Peter tells me he started selling yachts in the early 1980s, although we later discover that it must have been the late 70s. He can remember all the boats that have passed through his hands – but less of his own life, which seems to be in a comfortable sort of disarray. Books are scattered around the room and Peter’s motorbike, a BMW R45 twin-cylinder air-cooled boxer, is also in a state of disarray with the local mechanic. “The bike makes every journey an adventure,” says Peter, who rejects the idea of a fairing for comfort (a bit too ‘grandad’).

Peter’s first boat, the Pascual Flores, was a Spanish fruit schooner of 150 tons and 97ft (29.6m) LOD. Peter, having just left an expense-account-heaven job as European director of a travel firm, found himself on the dockside of Ibiza with his new three-masted schooner; assembled a scratch crew; “put some petrol in her”, and brought her back to Dartmouth – “Moorings were cheap in those days.”

The boat starred in a number of films, including Treasure Island and The Onedin Line series for the BBC. Peter sold her back to Spain in the 1980s and she’s been rebuilt as a national historic monument in her home port of Torrevieja. Peter’s next boat was one of the last existing Le Havre pilot cutters Marie Fernand (Jolie Brise being another). “She was a dinghy compared to our last boat. We could have put four of her on the deck of the old ship. Two-handing her was a joy.” When son Richard was born, she was sold to make way for a BB11, a Norwegian keelboat for Richard to learn to sail on. Marie Fernand was also restored as a heritage project and is now based in Le Havre. Now, Peter owns a Herreshoff Islander and has just acquired a 28ft (8.5m) Miller Fifer motor-sailer called Punch.

“There has been one radical change in the business since I started in brokerage. GRP was in its infancy – it only really began taking over in the 1970s. By the early 1980s, I was selling boats that were only 15 years old – but superb wooden yachts from the 60s. They were just seen as old wooden boats at the time, apart from by a small clique of traditional purists who insisted throughout that they would only have a proper wooden boat. If you had a wooden yacht then, people would think: ‘poor chap – he can only afford a wooden boat’. Now, with the resurgence of interest in classic wooden yachts, there are more and better wooden boats on the river than there were 20 years ago.” Peter comes from an older school of sailing, from a time before AIS and lifejacket-and-harness obsession. “People grew up with a different sort of boat and a different sort of sailing. Nowadays they break their shoelaces and call the lifeboat.”

On one occasion, an unassuming man called came to Peter to sell his boat Pomona, the prototype for the Laurent Giles-designed Vertue class of 25ft (7.6m) cruising sloops. “Done much with her?” Peter asked as they stood on the deck. Only six transats, a world circumnavigation and a bit of French cruising “when I’ve found the time”. “An unsung hero,” recounts Peter. “Nobody knows him, nobody knows the boat. It’s Humphrey Barton all over again.” (Humphrey Barton, Giles’s business partner, sailed a Vertue from Lymington to New York in 1950 and founded the Ocean Cruising Club.) Later, Peter confesses, “I don’t even own a lifejacket”.

Selling boats is more like a way of life than a job, Peter tells me later as we stand by the River Dart looking at the yachts. It’s paid the salary some years, but it’s up and down. Peter, now 65, is nearing the end of his working life, and people looking to sell and (particularly) to buy, will soon be deprived of his encyclopaedic knowledge and good sense in choosing the right yacht. His son Richard, also a sailor with four transats under his belt, might continue the tradition – but he’s undecided as yet. Peter’s younger son is now in the Royal Marines – “so he’ll be tied up for a while,” in Peter’s words.

Later, we talk about the problem of getting rid of old GRP hulls that sit at moorings long after the owners have stopped using them. The problem is that there’s no solution to the end-of-life plastic boat, unlike the wooden boat which will sink, rot or burn. Unlike the car, it has no recycling network available to it. One solution could be a huge machine with flashing lights and gnashing teeth that you would feed old hulls into to emerge as dust. Such a machine would suit Peter Gregson, of Wooden Ships, down to the ground.

A FEW BOATS PETER LIKES…

1. Miller Fifer – “the ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ of the seas”

“I was thinking about the pleasures of simple sailing in keelboats like the IOD and the West Solent Restricted Class – then along came TTES, Thomas the Tank Engine of the Seas: it blew all my good intentions and I did a 180º about turn. “I met Jimmy Miller in his yard in Anstruther many years ago. His production of the Miller Fifer range of motor-sailer yachts based on the big fishing boats he was building was inspired. His yachts were not expensive, they looked good and performed well and kept the yard active in thin times. The range was from 26ft to40ft (7.9-12.2m). The popular models were the 28-footers and the 32-footers. With a 12ft (3.7m) cast-iron keel 8in (20cm) wide and 10in (25cm) deep, you realise that you can bounce one of his boats on the Bass Rock and drive away. “This 28ft (8.5m) model came my way last autumn. I looked at her one evening in the dark, thought she had character and when the owner said he was going abroad and needed someone to take her on I could not resist. “I returned to see her again in the Hamble a week later with my son Richard, bought the boat and we headed back to Dartmouth. She was extraordinarily comfortable in the rough seas and I kept imagining what it would be like in a West Solent keelboat. “Terrific!” said my 25-year- old Richard, but I wonder…” “I have surprised myself at my liking for this little ship which has forced me to consider what sort of sailing one really wants to do. I don’t much enjoy racing, which I think contradicts all the rules of seamanship. I have a companion who hates boats that lean over – have you heard that before? Likes the leaving, loves the arriving and the bit in between is generally torture. The compromise is a motor-sailer where you can keep out of the weather but still feel you are communing with the elements. We can take an afternoon off and chug round the corner or blow gently down wind and still be home in time for tea. We can spend an evening on board anchored up the river and in the future we can think about adventures in the French canals.”

2. West Solent One-Design – “the sort of boat we should all have”.

“The IOD idea was suddenly relegated to the bottom of the list when I inspected a West Solent in Suffolk.  I knew these boats from many years ago when I had sold one or two. I watched with admiration as large sums were spent on restoring several of them in Maldon, producing the prettiest yachts. A vicar friend had one in Cornwall and Pete Nash, boat builder in Dartmouth, has just completed building a new one here for the same vicar (story in next month’s CB). “It seemed to be fate that suddenly my world was full of West Solents and I really could see myself sailing one. Just another step up from an IOD, two steps up from the Herreshoff Islander (see panel, left). I love the idea of the simple life in boats. Listening to boat owners, it seems they spend half their time and most of their money maintaining the systems rather than maintaining the boat – which can’t be right. “Yachtsmen have sailed for years without gadgetry, hot showers, and go-faster sunglasses. Forget those expensive 40-footers, a West Solent (34ft 6in/10.5m) is the sort of boat we should all have. After all, most people only use their yachts for day sailing, if they sleep aboard it is in the marina – and they rarely go anywhere. As the hard economic climate begins to affect so many of us, this is the perfect time to have another look at what sort of yachting we really want to do or indeed should be doing. “Up to around 1970, a 30-footer (9m) was a big yacht. You had to be doing pretty well to have a 9-tonner, which explains all the dozens of small yards round the coast building small yachts, and the post-war popularity of Maurice Griffiths and his yachting philosophy. I could probably tell you off the top of my head the names of yachts over 40ft (12.2m) built in UK yards each year of the 1960s – there weren’t that many.”

3. IOD – “Sailing life does not come any simpler”.

“Some of the best known yachtsmen in the world trained on International One Designs and the class still races actively in various ports around the world. It is a true one design (CB268). “I saw the IOD as the obvious progression from my 21ft (6.4m) Herreshoff Islander which I share with an old friend and keep on a mooring in Salcombe. She has two berths, no engine, in fact nothing else. A couple of pasties, a few beers and a good torch. Sailing life does not come much simpler.”

4. Robert Clark design – “one really good yacht”.

5. Kim Holman’s Sterling design – “A really cracking little yacht”

“Not everyone can justify owning a 15 ton, 42ft (12.8m) yacht or even want one (See Tyressa, above). Age has an extraordinary and often unexpected effect: much to the surprise of the mind, the body just doesn’t react the way it did and it takes some getting used to. If I have to choose a smaller yacht in a few years’ time there is one very obvious candidate, the 28ft (8.5m) Sterling sloop designed by Kim Holman. And of the 19 boats built by his brother Jack at Uphams in Brixham, there is one very special example, Kitra. “In the spring of 2005, I recommended Kitra to some clients and they fell for her immediately they saw her. Every year since then they have made an extended summer cruise to southern Ireland or to the Brittany coast and this little yacht has done everything one would expect. “Jack Holman built most of the Twisters, designed by his brother Kim, though other yards built some as well, the early boats were in wood. However, it was about the time when glassfibre was coming in and he made the very audacious decision early on to abandon the culture of wood and make a total change to glassfibre. So he closed the yard, sent all the men off on a course and reopened to build GRP hulls. He often told me that the wooden Twisters were faster than the glassfibre boats but they never could explain why. She has 6ft (1.8m) headroom without making the coach-roof look unbalanced, the berths are 6ft, she has a separate heads and an extraordinarily clever table that folds away like some Chinese puzzle to stow up against the bulkhead. “Typical of the period, she has an aluminium mast with a varnished roller-reefing boom and the mast is stepped on a massive galvanised steel shoe on the coach-roof with the twin bulkheads below taking the compression strains. This allows a walk-through below from the saloon cabin to the fore cabin with it’s V-berths. “This is a really cracking little yacht. She may not be quite as fast as her sister the Twister, but she has a fraction more volume in the cabin and is the most forgiving yacht to sail. If I’m forced to look 10 years ahead of now, this is the yacht for me.”

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We hope that you enjoy our selection of classic sailing yachts. Please do not hesitate to contact us for further information on any of the yachts featured on our website.

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BROWSE OUR ADDITIONAL SAILING YACHTS FOR SALE , CLASSIC MOTOR YACHTS FOR SALE AND SMALL BOATS FOR SALE AT WOODEN SHIPS.

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DARTMOUTH CLASSICS & PARADE OF SAIL

Dartmouth classics.

The 2021 Dartmouth Classics will run in conjunction with the first two days of the biennial Classic Channel Regatta. Boat are very welcome to join for just Dartmouth Classics – to enter, simply pre-register for Dartmouth Classics :

2021 Pre-registration

The eligibility rules are the same as for the Classic Channel Regatta except that:

• The minimum LOA is reduced to 5.4 metres
• There is an additional class 5 for ‘Gaffers and luggers designed after 1974 which are not admissible in other classes’

All classes will race to the JCH Classic Handicap. This is free and you can get your rating online.

Dartmouth Parade of Sail

All traditional and classic local boats, both power and sail, that were designed before 1969, or look like a pre-1969 design, are welcome to join the parade, even if they are not racing in the regatta.

• There is no restriction on size.
• The parade will start at approximately 10am on Tuesday July 6th (exact time t.b.c.).
• It will run from the vicinity of the Higher Ferry to the mouth of the river.
• Precise instructions on how to join the parade will be posted here one week in advance.
• There will be no need to formally enter beforehand – just arrive at the designated muster point at the given time.

To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.

17 jul All Day 24 Featured Classic Channel Regatta

Event Details

Welcome to the Classic Channel Regatta – a uniquely enjoyable week-long international event with its own distinctive and varied blend of racing with a lively and informal social programme bringing

Welcome to the Classic Channel Regatta – a uniquely enjoyable week-long international event with its own distinctive and varied blend of racing with a lively and informal social programme bringing together a wonderful gathering of classic boats and their crews from Britain, France and further afield.

The regatta is biennial and the next one in 2024 will again start in Dartmouth with two days of racing in Start Bay before racing to St Peter Port in Guernsey and then on to Paimpol in Brittany where there will be the legendary welcome and hospitality in Paimpol and a race around the Île de Brêhat.

The regatta is centred on three of the finest historic ports in the English Channel, each providing a beautiful backdrop with its own distinctive Westcountry, Channel Islands and Breton ambiance. And while the racing is the backbone of the regatta, it is the crews and beautiful boats, and the informal socials ashore, that are its beating heart.

Racing is under the JCH Classic Handicap which is free and easy to obtain online. Classic yachts designed before the end of 1974 built in any material, and some more recent yachts designed and built in classic style, are eligible.

The Classic Channel Regatta is a revival of the spirit of an earlier age of sailing and racing. If you own or sail in a classic yacht, or just want to come and admire the spectacle, we hope you’ll be able to join us at the 2024 regatta to experience everything that makes the Classic Channel Regatta “the world’s most beautiful regatta”.

july 17 (Wednesday) - 24 (Wednesday)

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TO YOUR ESCAPE

Welcome to Your Escape official website.  Our beautiful wooden classic yacht Escape is fully equipped to carry 8 passengers for an exclusive experience, sailing out of Dartmouth, Devon. There is no better way to appreciate and enjoy the South Devon coastline.  You can either sit back, relax and enjoy the trip with lunch and refreshments or you can get involved with the sailing under instruction from our fully qualified crew. You can charter us for a whole day, half day, evening sailing or even a night aboard!

Find out more here

Dartmouth Classics

The Dartmouth Classics consists of two days of racing for classic yachts and dayboats (over 5.4 metres LOD) held in June or July each year. Racing takes place in Start Bay.

The event is alternately organised by the Royal Dart Yacht Club (RDYC) and the Classic Channel Regatta Ltd (CCR).

When run by the RDYC the Dartmouth Classics is a weekend event and is a standalone regatta. When run by the CCR it is part of the Classic Channel Regatta and is timed to allow the CCR to finish in Paimpol when the tides allow berthing for a fleet of up to 100 yachts.

In 2024 the Dartmouth Classics will take place on Thursday 18th and Friday 19th July 2024. The event is part of the Classic Channel Regatta.

Both events are part of the Westcountry Classics Series  which includes the Falmouth and Fowey Classic Regattas.

For more information follow the link below

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Canoes and Community: A look into Ledyard Canoe Club

Ledyard, a campus-favorite club, has a long history at the college.

This article is featured in the 2024 Green Key special issue.

On May 4, I trekked across campus with my friends Margaret “Maggie” de la Fuente ’27 and Avery Stern ’27 to the Ledyard Canoe Club’s clubhouse, a quaint building located just a few feet from the Connecticut River. Excited by the prospect of being outside for one of the first sunny Saturdays of the spring term, we rented a canoe and made our way over to the docks. 

Ledyard Canoe Club, often referred to as just Ledyard, is one of 23 sub-organizations of the Dartmouth Outing Club. College students and community members alike can either purchase a year-long Ledyard membership or rent a canoe for an hourly fee during the open season, which begins in the spring, when the water temperature reaches 50 degrees Fahrenheit. The season ends in the fall, when the water temperature drops below the 50 degree threshold — or when business “doesn’t really run anymore,” according to junior business manager Aksel Paul ’27 and senior business manager Owen Duncan ’26. 

As business managers, Paul and Duncan are responsible for Ledyard’s finances. Ledyard is the only financially-independent DOC sub-organization, Duncan said. According to the collection “Ledyard Canoe Club: A History of Exploration and Adventure” at the Rauner Special Collections Library, Ledyard’s financial autonomy has a long history. Ledyard was founded as an independent non-profit organization in 1920 and did not become an official College organization until 1977, according to the collection.

Paul said he became involved with Ledyard after one of his close friends, who is a “huge kayaker,” encouraged him to sign up for a DOC trip. During his excursion, Paul said he “completely fell in love” with the DOC and began attending “feeds” — meals with other Ledyard members — and weekly Ledyard council meetings soon after.

“[Joining Ledyard] has been probably one of the best decisions I’ve made since coming to Dartmouth,” Paul said. “[The Connecticut River] is my favorite place on campus.”

In contrast, Duncan said he “grew up doing a lot of outdoorsy activities,” which have “always been huge for [him].” During his freshman winter, Duncan applied to be junior business manager because it combined his interest in the outdoors with “an awesome business experience.”

“It’s the best job on campus,” Duncan said.

Paul and Duncan said they are currently working with the College to renovate the Ledyard clubhouse, which serves as the headquarters for its  canoe rental business and occasional social events. The upstairs floor of the clubhouse, which used to provide student housing for the business managers, has since been “condemned” due to asbestos concerns. There is also “pretty severe” erosion along the river bank, according to Duncan. 

“The retaining wall has probably moved a foot in the last year,” he said. “I can see it move on a month-by-month basis.” 

Duncan added that he had to “dig a trench” in the nearby parking lot last summer to prevent the clubhouse from flooding during rain storms. This summer, Paul will be working full-time as junior business manager.

Duncan and Paul also said they “really do not like” that Ledyard is a “price-exclusive” organization, since there are fees associated with renting equipment. Currently, “all of the [revenue]” that Ledyard brings in “goes toward the club and staff wages,” Paul said. 

“A primary priority is improving the student experience by having accessibility to canoes and kayaks [and] being able to provide a venue for events,” he explained. 

According to Duncan, the College paid boat rental employees’ wages during the COVID-19 pandemic — “the only time in the Ledyard business’s history” — which allowed Ledyard to offer access to boats for free. 

“To encourage people to get outside, all boat rentals were free for students for a short time because there were no staffing costs,” he explained.  

Duncan added that the club is “trying to move in a direction” to provide free boat rentals “soon.”

As Maggie, Avery and I paddled up the river, we couldn’t help but talk about the beauty of the views: the still water, freshly-green trees and comically puffy clouds all painted a picture perfect day. Even our close encounter with two boats from the men’s rowing team — no further elaboration on that — can be viewed through the lens of the gorgeous spring day, grounding us in our NARP-ness.

Our hour-long canoe trip may not seem like much, but it was a peaceful intermission to what the three of us agree have been harrowing academic experiences. Same time next week? 

Graduate student reported missing

Looking back at recent unionization efforts at the College

A history of financial aid at Dartmouth

Dsg fails vote of no confidence in college leadership, beilock: college president apologizes for community harm, letter to the editor: we dartmouth faculty members support the recent actions by college president sian leah beilock, individuals arrested at the may 1 protest share their experiences, letter to the editor: statement from dartmouth’s jewish organizations.

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Savvino-storozhevsky monastery and museum.

Zvenigorod's most famous sight is the Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery, which was founded in 1398 by the monk Savva from the Troitse-Sergieva Lavra, at the invitation and with the support of Prince Yury Dmitrievich of Zvenigorod. Savva was later canonised as St Sabbas (Savva) of Storozhev. The monastery late flourished under the reign of Tsar Alexis, who chose the monastery as his family church and often went on pilgrimage there and made lots of donations to it. Most of the monastery’s buildings date from this time. The monastery is heavily fortified with thick walls and six towers, the most impressive of which is the Krasny Tower which also serves as the eastern entrance. The monastery was closed in 1918 and only reopened in 1995. In 1998 Patriarch Alexius II took part in a service to return the relics of St Sabbas to the monastery. Today the monastery has the status of a stauropegic monastery, which is second in status to a lavra. In addition to being a working monastery, it also holds the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum.

Belfry and Neighbouring Churches

Located near the main entrance is the monastery's belfry which is perhaps the calling card of the monastery due to its uniqueness. It was built in the 1650s and the St Sergius of Radonezh’s Church was opened on the middle tier in the mid-17th century, although it was originally dedicated to the Trinity. The belfry's 35-tonne Great Bladgovestny Bell fell in 1941 and was only restored and returned in 2003. Attached to the belfry is a large refectory and the Transfiguration Church, both of which were built on the orders of Tsar Alexis in the 1650s.  

To the left of the belfry is another, smaller, refectory which is attached to the Trinity Gate-Church, which was also constructed in the 1650s on the orders of Tsar Alexis who made it his own family church. The church is elaborately decorated with colourful trims and underneath the archway is a beautiful 19th century fresco.

Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is the oldest building in the monastery and among the oldest buildings in the Moscow Region. It was built between 1404 and 1405 during the lifetime of St Sabbas and using the funds of Prince Yury of Zvenigorod. The white-stone cathedral is a standard four-pillar design with a single golden dome. After the death of St Sabbas he was interred in the cathedral and a new altar dedicated to him was added.

Under the reign of Tsar Alexis the cathedral was decorated with frescoes by Stepan Ryazanets, some of which remain today. Tsar Alexis also presented the cathedral with a five-tier iconostasis, the top row of icons have been preserved.

Tsaritsa's Chambers

The Nativity of Virgin Mary Cathedral is located between the Tsaritsa's Chambers of the left and the Palace of Tsar Alexis on the right. The Tsaritsa's Chambers were built in the mid-17th century for the wife of Tsar Alexey - Tsaritsa Maria Ilinichna Miloskavskaya. The design of the building is influenced by the ancient Russian architectural style. Is prettier than the Tsar's chambers opposite, being red in colour with elaborately decorated window frames and entrance.

At present the Tsaritsa's Chambers houses the Zvenigorod Historical, Architectural and Art Museum. Among its displays is an accurate recreation of the interior of a noble lady's chambers including furniture, decorations and a decorated tiled oven, and an exhibition on the history of Zvenigorod and the monastery.

Palace of Tsar Alexis

The Palace of Tsar Alexis was built in the 1650s and is now one of the best surviving examples of non-religious architecture of that era. It was built especially for Tsar Alexis who often visited the monastery on religious pilgrimages. Its most striking feature is its pretty row of nine chimney spouts which resemble towers.

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