Archaeologists are facing a “race against time” to explore the wreck of an English warship that sank in a huge storm more than 300 years ago.
Northumberland was a 70-gun warship built in Bristol, England in 1679 as part of the transformation of the English navy under Samuel Pepys – now best-known for his diaries – from a corrupt institution to a fighting force to be reckoned with.
The ship was wrecked on a sandbank off the coast of Kent, southeast England during the devastating Great Storm of November 26, 1703, alongside three other warships: Restoration, Stirling Castle and Mary. Historical accounts suggest around 250 crew members perished on Northumberland.
The remains of the ship were discovered in 1979 when a fisherman’s net became snagged.
Experts say the wreck, which covers a large area of the seabed at a depth of 50 to 65 feet (15 to 20 meters), is very well preserved by the sand and seabed sediment that covered it for hundreds of years.
Northumberland has always been partially been covered by sand and sediment since it was first discovered, making it difficult to explore. But last summer, around two-thirds of the ship was exposed and maritime archaeologists were able to conduct a deep-sea exploration.
The detailed survey revealed, among other things, an extensive hull structure, multiple iron cannons, swords, muskets, copper cauldrons and some sealed chests whose contents remain unknown, Historic England said in a press release.
The heritage body says it is now a “race against time” to record the details of Northumberland before the shifting sands bury it again. It says the wreck is also threatened by strong currents and wood-boring creatures, which mean it could become unstable and quickly degrade.
Hefin Meara, a maritime archaeologist with Historic England who commissioned the survey, told CNN why the wreck’s location has played a such big part in both its discovery and its current jeopardy.
“Goodwin Sands, where this wreck is located, is really, really dynamic,” he said. “You’ve got these enormous sand dunes that sort of migrate around the area, so a wreck will be completely exposed for some time and then the sand comes over it and will bury it in five, six more meters’ worth of sand, so it will completely disappear for a decade or more.”
This is what is thought to have happened between when the ship, which Meara said would have originally been about 150 feet (46 meters) long, was first located in 1979 and more recently.
“It’s a major, major warship,” he said. “We’ve got an area exposed somewhere in the region of about 98ft (30m) long, so it’s not the whole wreck exposed just yet. We’re looking at a wreck that’s going to be spread over quite a large area because it’s gone through this period of exposure and reburial several times in the last 300 years so it’s going to be dispersed to a certain extent.”
The team is planning more geophysical surveys as it tries to figure out how to make the most of this window before the sand recovers the Northumberland, or it begins to degrade due to exposure to oxygen and other environmental factors, Meara said.
“These shipwrecks are such an incredible resource because they go down and the loss happens over a single event,” he said. “This is a snapshot of life onboard a warship and it’s all preserved there so there’s a huge opportunity to learn about what was happening during this incredibly exciting period of expansion in the navy.”
The wreck is the subject of a new documentary made by historian Dan Snow for his streaming service History Hit. In the Historic England press release, Snow compared the wreck to that of the Mary Rose, a warship commissioned under Henry VIII that famously sank in 1545, and HMS Victory, the world’s oldest surviving commissioned warship.
“Northumberland is THE missing link,” Snow said. “Built roughly halfway between the Mary Rose and HMS Victory, this wreck can fill in crucial details of shipbuilding and life at sea at that pivotal moment in our history. We have the Mary Rose, the ‘Tudor time capsule’, well here’s a Stuart time capsule to sit alongside it.”
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