18th century shipwreck among ‘best preserved' of its time, experts say
The latest survey, organised by Historic England with MSDS divers, found wooden decks, lengths of rope, copper cauldrons, and wooden chests with some preserved cannon balls inside had survived 'particularly well'.
The 320-year-old protected wreck site is at high risk of deterioration as shifting sands expose it to processes which may erode the well preserved wreckage, Historic England said.
Its licensee Dan Pascoe, who monitors the site, said: 'The Northumberland has the potential to be one of the best-preserved wooden warships in the UK.
'However, at 20 metres underwater and nine miles offshore, it is out of sight and mind to most people.'
The Northumberland was a third rate 70-gun warship built in Bristol in 1679 as part of Samuel Pepys's regeneration of the English Navy.
It sank during the 'Great Storm' on November 26, 1703 off Kent along with three other warships, including The Mary – the location of which is still unknown.
They were all part of Queen Anne's fleet, the last Stuart monarch, reigning from 1702 to 1714.
A film made by streaming service History Hit airs on Thursday detailing the new survey and the initial construction of the Northumberland.
Creator Dan Snow said: 'Northumberland 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 'Tudor time capsule' – well here's a Stuart time capsule to sit alongside it.'
Future work on the site may include taking wood samples or dendrochronological sampling to find out more about the ship's construction and confirm its identity.
Paul Jeffery, marine leader at Historic England, said: 'The completeness of the Northumberland wreck site is remarkable.
'It is a race against time as more of the Northumberland wreck becomes exposed.'
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Glasgow Times
4 hours ago
- Glasgow Times
'We'll use King's Honours to keep battling for our Glasgow community'
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The Guardian
15 hours ago
- The Guardian
The Confessions of Samuel Pepys by Guy de la Bédoyère review – sex and the city
Samuel Pepys's diary, which covers 1660 to 1669, is regarded as one of the great classic texts in the English language. Words spill out of Pepys – 1.25m of them – as he bustles around London, building a successful career as a naval administrator while navigating the double trauma of the plague and the Great Fire of London. Historians have long gone to the diary for details of middle-class life during the mid‑17th century: the seamy streets, the watermen, the taverns and, as Pepys moves up the greasy pole, the court and the king. Best of all is his eye for the picturesque detail: the way, for instance, on the morning of 4 September 1666, as fire licks around his house, Pepys buries a choice parmesan cheese in the garden with the intention of keeping it safe. Not all of the diary is in English, though. Quite a lot of it is in French (or rather Franglais), Latin, Spanish and a curious mashup of all three. Pepys increasingly resorted to this home-brewed polyglot whenever the subject of sex came up, which was often. Indeed, sex – chasing it, having it, worrying about getting it again – dominated Pepys's waking life and haunted his dreams, many of them nightmares. Putting these anguished passages in a garbled form not only lessened the chance of servants snooping, but also served to protect him from his own abiding sense of shame. As an extra layer of concealment, Pepys wrote 'my Journall' using tachygraphy, an early form of shorthand. Pepys's diaries were published in bowdlerised form in the 19th century, and it was not until the 1970s that they became available in 11 unexpurgated volumes. Even then, explains Guy de la Bédoyère, there were many transcription errors and, crucially, no attempt was made to translate the coded passages into English. Historians knew about them, of course, not least because all you needed was a bit of classroom French and Latin to work out their meaning. On 25 March 1668, Pepys records that he has given 'Mrs Daniels' eight pairs of gloves 'for tocar my prick con her hand', which is hardly likely to keep anyone guessing for very long. All the same, it has been easy to lose sight of the sexual thread of Pepys's diary amid all the chatter about navy ships and expensive cheese. Which is why, for the first time, De la Bédoyère has gone back to the original manuscript and translated all of Pepys's coded entries, publishing them end-to-end with only a minimum of contextual information. The result is an extraordinarily detailed snapshot of life seen through the eyes of a man for whom no day was complete unless he had managed to fondle at least one woman's 'mameles' (breasts) on his way to or from work. In the past, people have blamed Pepys's bad behaviour on the Restoration. These were the years when the dour pieties of Oliver Cromwell had been replaced by Charles II's permissive libertarianism. 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As news of his behaviour got around, so others would try to exploit it. On 11 August 1665, an old waterman called Delkes presented Pepys with his daughter-in-law, who was willing to sleep with him in return for a guarantee that her husband would not be pressed into naval service. And then there was his marriage. Pepys had wed Elizabeth when she was just 14. He was proud of her beauty, congratulating himself on how much prettier she was than the many grand ladies at court whom he encountered on his way to becoming secretary to the navy. Everything else about her frustrated him. He grumbled about her untidiness, extravagance, moodiness and the fact that her heavy periods and a recurrent labial abscess meant that she often wasn't available for sex. Most of all, he resented the way that she had taken to hiring plain maidservants in the hope that he would leave them alone (it didn't work). Inevitably he took out his frustrations with his fists: on 19 December 1664 he gave Elizabeth such a black eye that she was unable to go to church on Christmas Day for fear of what the neighbours would think. While Pepys's dark side has long been known, it is something else to be confronted with the evidence laid out quite so starkly. The man who emerges from De la Bédoyère's meticulous filleting is no Restoration roustabout but a chilling embodiment of male entitlement. This newly explicit view of Pepys does not negate the continuing value of his diary – which remains a magnificent historical resource – but from now on it will be impossible to go to it in a state of innocence, let alone denial. Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion The Confessions of Samuel Pepys: His Private Revelations by Guy de la Bédoyère is published by Abacus (£25). To support the Guardian order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
BBC News
16 hours ago
- BBC News
Rural 17th Century Lake District farmhouse gets listed status
A 17th Century farmhouse has been granted Grade II listed building, known as Mullender, in the remote valley of Swindale in the Lake District was awarded the status by Historic England in organisation said the building was a "good example of a modest Westmorland farmstead".Lake District National Park Authority (LDNPA) official Rose Lord said the structure's new status introduced an "extra layer of protection above normal planning rules". LDNPA said Mullender was a good example of a "hall house" which was a type of early domestic building that usually had a hearth for a fire at one or both England said it retained "good survival" of its "original structural fabric" and that its roof structure demonstrated "early carpentry techniques". The Hearth Tax of between 1669 and 1672 recorded 14 households in Swindale of which the people living in Mullender would have been one, according to the was converted into a space for cows in the 1800s. The building also has a detached barn that was also awarded listed status which Historic England said had a "good historic roof structure".LDNPA said that even though Mullender had not been used as a residence for nearly 200 years, there was a "strong chance" that future proposals could be made to convert Mullender for such usage building's new listed status would prevent "unsympathetic alterations", said Ms Lord."The distinctive traditional buildings of the Lake District are a key part of the national park's special qualities," she said. Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
