Famous name returns for first of Royal Navy's newest nuclear submarines

One of the most symbolic names in Royal Navy history has been resurrected after more than 35 years and assigned to the first of the next-generation nuclear-missile-armed submarines.

On the most important day in the Royal Navy’s calendar - Trafalgar Day - Her Majesty The Queen has given her consent for the 17,200-tonne boat to carry the name Dreadnought.

It’s a warship title which goes back to the reign of Elizabeth I, more than 450 years, but was most famously borne by two British warships in the 20th Century.

The name was last held by Britain’s first nuclear-powered submarine, launched by the Queen exactly 56 years ago today in Barrow – the very same yard where the new boat is being constructed.

That ninth Dreadnought largely served as an experimental/trials boat for subsequent generations of hunter-killer submarines and conducted Cold War patrols, until she was paid off in 1980.