THE Duke of Edinburgh will take part in a special ceremony involving the world's oldest clipper, the City of Adelaide, at Greenwich, London, next month.

The vessel was built in 1864 to take migrants from Europe to Australia and was later a hospital ship, a training ship, and finally a clubhouse moored in the River Clyde in Glasgow.

When in Scotland it was flooded, and has been stored on a slipway in Irvine, North Ayrshire, since 1992, where it was preserved by the Scottish Maritime Museum.

Management at the museum could not afford to refurbish the vessel and had applied to demolish it to save some of the parts of the ship, but the group Clipper Ship City of Adelaide applied to relocate it and the clipper is to be part of a South Australian maritime heritage park.

It left Scotland for the last time recently, bound for London on its long journey.

The Duke will take part in a formal renaming ceremony on October 18.