Archaeologists have faced a \u201crace against time\u201d to explore the wreck of an English warship that sank in a huge storm more than 300 years ago. \u2018Northumberland\u2019 was a \u201c70 Gun Warship\u201d built in Bristol, England in 1679 as part of the transformation of the English navy under Samuel Pepys \u2013 now best-known for his diaries \u2013 from a corrupt institution to a fighting force to be reckoned with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ill-fated 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The remains of the ship were discovered in 1979 when a fisherman\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The heritage body says it is now a \u201crace against time\u201d 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hefin Meara, a maritime archaeologist with Historic England who commissioned the survey, told Press Reporters – why the wreck\u2019s location has played a such big part in both its discovery and its current jeopardy. \u201cGoodwin Sands, where this wreck is located, is really, really dynamic. You\u2019ve 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\u2019 worth of sand, so it will completely disappear for a decade or more<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. \u201cIt\u2019s a major, major warship. We\u2019ve got an area exposed somewhere in the region of about 98ft (30m) long, so it\u2019s not the whole wreck exposed just yet. We\u2019re looking at a wreck that\u2019s going to be spread over quite a large area because it\u2019s gone through this period of exposure and reburial several times in the last 300 years so it\u2019s going to be dispersed to a certain extent\u201d.<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. \u201cThese shipwrecks are such an incredible resource because they go down and the loss happens over a single event. This is a snapshot of life onboard a warship and it\u2019s all preserved there so there\u2019s a huge opportunity to learn about what was happening during this incredibly exciting period of expansion in the navy<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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\u2019s oldest surviving commissioned warship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNorthumberland is THE missing link. 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 \u2018Tudor time capsule\u2019, well here\u2019s a Stuart time capsule to sit alongside it\u201d,<\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong> Dan Snow has reiterated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Team Maverick<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Archaeologists have faced a \u201crace against time\u201d to explore the wreck of an English warship that sank in a huge storm more than 300 years ago. \u2018Northumberland\u2019 was a \u201c70 Gun Warship\u201d built in Bristol, England in 1679 as part of the transformation of the English navy under Samuel Pepys \u2013 now best-known for his …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":62620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[81],"post_format":[],"flags":[],"class_list":["post-62619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62621,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62619\/revisions\/62621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/62620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62619"},{"taxonomy":"post_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fpost_format&post=62619"},{"taxonomy":"flags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mavericknews30.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fflags&post=62619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}