TS GANGES
Royal Marines Cadets Cambridge operate out of TS Ganges, a multi-decked training centre in Cheddars Lane, Cambridge, not far from the riverside, where the Sea Cadet unit began life many years ago. The current facility was built by local consulting civil and structural engineers, Gawn Associates. In 2002, a riverside redevelopment gave the Sea Cadets the opportunity to relocate to this site, where a purpose designed steel framed building provided us with a new state of the art facility. The front unit provides three storeys (we call decks) of accommodation which includes workshops, six lecture rooms, several administration offices and boat storage areas, and at the rear a portal frame structure provides a very large space for our quarterdeck, which we now refer to as
the Main Deck and is used for our twice weekly parades and regular divisional reviews. The TS in TS Ganges stands for Training Ship and is named for HMS Ganges, a name which has been borne by several ships in the Royal Navy since the 19th Century, but then, at the turn of the 20th Century, became one of the most famously tough Royal Navy Training Establishments for boys in the service, established at Shotley at the confluence of the rivers Stour and Orwell on the coast near Ipswich in Suffolk in 1905, remaining so until its closure in 1976. The motto of HMS Ganges "Wisdom is Strength" is adopted by the Sea Cadet unit here in Cambridge. Unit No. 066 of the Sea Cadet Corps. Royal Marines Cadets are proud to serve alongside them and privileged to have such an enviable facility from which to carry out our training.
The Detachment Crest incorporates the Globe & Laurel flanked by bars of Cambridge Blue surmounted with Fouled Anchors of the Admiralty that signify our proud affiliations to the Royal Marines, the Royal Navy, the Sea Cadets, and the City of Cambridge.
The Ganges Crest is diamond shaped, which denotes that it is a shore establishment. Designed by Captain William Ford RN, Commanding Officer of the ship HMS Ganges in 1927, 106 years after the first Ganges floated in Bombay (Mumbai) harbour. It would have originally been round, denoting a ship. It is of a male elephant of the Indian type, signifying strength and wisdom, and was inspired by Rudyard Kipling's Hathi.