wrecks in 1665

Sailor stories

~ Serena ~ Leave a comment

This week I am delighted to introduce my guest bloggers Roshni Hirani, Endeavour Community Participation Producer, and Kris Martin, Exhibitions Interpretation Curator at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Here they give us an exclusive insight into the work that has gone into selecting objects from the London, a designated wreck which sank in 1665. Thank you both for showing how the story of the London continues!

Sailor Stories: a National Maritime Museum co-curation project themed around the wreck of the London

2018 is an exciting year for the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. In the autumn we will open our new Exploration Wing, a Heritage Lottery funded project consisting of four new permanent galleries which will bring the theme of exploration alive for people of all ages. One of these new galleries will be Tudor and Stuart Seafarers, which will tell a compelling story of exploration, encounter, adventure, power, wealth and conflict during the 16th and 17th centuries. Among the 100 objects from the Museum’s collection, we are delighted to be displaying a small assemblage of artefacts recently recovered from the wreck of the Stuart warship London which sank in the Thames estuary in 1665.

While the Museum has a rich and significant collection of objects from this period, one of the challenges we identified from an early stage was how to represent the lives of ordinary sailors in the Tudor and Stuart navies in the gallery. Members of the project team were already avidly following the progress of the excavation of the London wreck and were fascinated by finds that were being brought to the surface by Steve Ellis and his team. With this in mind, in 2016 we approached Historic England and Southend Museums, the receiving custodian of the excavated material, about the possibility of collaborating on a co-curation project themed around the London, with the outcome being the selection and display of 5 or 6 objects from the wreck in our new gallery.

We were aware of the importance of the London to the Southend community and from the outset, wanted to work with them to help us explore, select and interpret objects from their ‘local wreck’. Through Southend Museums we approached Jessica Russell, Community Outreach, and Patricia North, Head of Art, at Southend Adult Community College and invited them to take part in our Sailor Stories co-curation project. The response from their students was fantastic: 12 adult learners, with different skills, abilities and backgrounds, but with a common interest in heritage and the London wreck, signed up to take part. Encouragingly most of the group stayed with us until the end of the project and we were also delighted to later welcome 2 A-Level students interested in history and museums from nearby Chase High School.

Pencil and wash portrait of a wooden warship in broadside view, bows to the left, stern to the right. From the stern a naval ensign flutters, and the lower portions of three masts are drawn. At top left is a separate drawing of a Union Jack.
Portrait of the London by Willem van de Velde the Elder, circa 1660. © National Maritime Museum

Historic England’s involvement in the excavation, temporary storage and conservation of the London finds meant that it was wonderful that the team at Fort Cumberland, with HE Archaeological Conservator Angela Middleton leading, agreed to come on board as a project partner. A fruitful kick-off meeting there between Southend Museums, Southend Adult Community College, Historic England and the National Maritime Museum laid the foundations for a rich and varied 5-week programme at various sites over the summer of 2017.

The Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth was the destination for our first Sailor Stories session. Here, Mary Kinoulty, Head of Learning, and Curator and diver Chris Dobbs introduced the Mary Rose, the museum and its new displays. This was the ideal place to give the group a taster of the processes, techniques, challenges and opportunities associated with the selection, interpretation and display of shipwreck material. Moreover this was a chance to enthuse and engage the Southend team with the subject matter and encourage further participation through a well-known wreck and the spectacular interactive displays at the museum.

Group of people clustered from bottom right to centre listening to guided talk in museum. At centre is a glass display case with a ship model inside, paintings occupy the walls in the upper register of the image.
Nick Ball talks to Sailor Stories participants about 17th century ships (author’s photograph)

The second session took place at the National Maritime Museum where our co-curators learnt about the museum, its collection and displays, and the planned new galleries. They were given time to explore the museum with Curator Aaron Jaffer, and together considered the different ways objects can be displayed and interpreted. We introduced the London through an original drawing of the ship by Willem van de Velde, the Elder, in the museum’s collection and looked at ships of the time through paintings and models in the company of Nick Ball, the Museum’s Assistant Curator of Ship Models.

The following week at Southend Museum’s store, participants went ‘behind the scenes’ for a session that considered the excavation, storage, handling and conservation of wreck material. Led by Conservator Claire Reed and Curator Ciara Phipps, this included a hands-on session where the team relished the opportunity to work in small groups to assess and repack waterlogged organic objects excavated from the local area.

Group of people standing in a semi-circle and all wearing blue conservation gloves,watching conservators working with object on table at right. Background is shelves of museum storage boxes.
Participants learning about the safe storage of waterlogged organic objects with Claire Reed and Ciara Phipps (author’s photograph)

Back in Portsmouth for the fourth session, we joined Angela Middleton and the Archaeological Conservation team at Fort Cumberland. This was the first opportunity for the group to see actual objects from the London wreck. As the objects were at various stages of conservation, the participants gained an understanding of the processes and challenges involved, and learnt more about what the work at Fort Cumberland is revealing about the objects and the London.

Participants standing around table in museum store listening to conservator speaking at right, with her arm stretched out across the table, which is covered with boxes and objects sitting on white conservation tissue.
Angela Middleton gives participants an insight into the conservation of objects from the London (author’s photograph)

The group was then split into two and was presented with a preselected assemblage of 25 London objects, taken from over 750 that had been recovered. Without any interpretation they looked at the objects closely thinking about what they could have been used for, what they were made from, what questions they would want to ask about them and what they could tell us, before presenting to the other group a selection of five objects that they would initially pick for public display. After learning more about each object, participants created their ‘final’ selection which had invariably changed from their first choice. Choosing the final selection was challenging given the short amount of time and it was important for participants to have some time to reflect on their choice.

For the final session all participants returned to the National Maritime Museum where the four new galleries will open next year. This session concentrated on museum audiences and interpretation. We asked participants to write their own museum label about something that belonged to them or a piece of clothing they were wearing. They learnt about the importance of ordering information and the difficult decision-making involved in choosing material relevant to their target audience. These were then discussed as a group. The session ended with a review of the London artefacts selected, which includes a leather shoe, a clay pipe, a pewter pot and a broken candle, and a discussion of how they would be interpreted at the National Maritime Museum. We then celebrated the success of the project with a preview of our brand new temporary exhibition, and tea and cake!

The Sailor Stories co-curation project was a great triumph and a mutually enriching and inspiring experience for all involved. Feedback from the participants was universally positive: the group enjoyed ‘seeing and handling artefacts – feeling involved and working in a group’ and ‘meeting the team behind the scenes’. They also loved seeing how museums work, engaging with heritage and conservation professionals and creatively contributing and responding to the project. Southend Adult Community College has produced a short film to commemorate their experience:

 

(This video has no voiceover)

it appears that the project has inspired at least one participant to seriously consider a career in museums or heritage. The experience opened our eyes to the different perspectives, discussions and debates surrounding the wreck and how members of Southend’s community felt it should be displayed and represented in a national museum. This co-curation model is one that we are keen to follow in future gallery development. We look forward to seeing the outcome of Sailor Stories on display next year.

We would like to thank everyone from Southend Adult Community College, Chase High School, Southend Museums, Historic England, the Mary Rose Trust and Royal Museums Greenwich who took part in the Sailor Stories co-curation project.

Glossary: Co-curation describes community participation and collaboration in creating exhibitions together with professional museum curators.

@RMGreenwich

@SouthendMuseums

@SouthendACC

@HE_Archaeology

@HE_Maritime

#SailorStories

#LondonWreck1665

Roshni Hirani, Endeavour Community Participation Producer (@RoshHirani) and

Kris Martin, Exhibitions Interpretation Curator at the National Maritime Museum (@kristianjmartin)

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For previous blogs on the London:

The London blows up, 7 March 1665 on the 350th anniversary of the wreck

The London wreck today on the wreck site as she now lies

The London: A conservator’s tool-kit, by Angela Middleton, on the challenges of conserving objects from the wreck site

Conservation of artefacts from the wreck of the London, by Eric Nordgren, continuing the theme of conserving further objects from the London

 

No.77 The London wreck today

~ Serena ~ 1 Comment

2015: Telling the story of the London today

A CGI reconstruction of the wreck of a wooden vessel lying on her side with holes blown in her structure.
A CGI reconstruction of the London wreck on the seabed. © Touch Productions

The ordnance, so crucial to the story of the lost London, as described in the previous post, and the salvage of the vessel in the aftermath, is also the theme of her more recent story. A gun was found on the site in 1962, and further investigation of the site in 1985 concluded that its iron content was too great to indicate a 17th century vessel (because the ordnance aboard the London was believed to be predominantly brass). Archaeological investigation in 2006, before dredging for the London Gateway project began, identified two discrete sites close to one another. In 2007 two bronze cannon said to be from the site were reported to the Receiver of Wreck, suggesting a threat sufficient to trigger an assessment of the site’s national importance as a candidate for designation under the Protection of Wrecks Act, which was achieved in 2008.

Local volunteers, under the site Licensee Steve Ellis, began monitoring the site in 2010. The Thames Estuary is a challenging environment for divers and for the wreck itself, which is also under threat from natural forces: the sediment mobility in the area and the effects of climate change, in which warm-water organisms have migrated northward with the potential to impact on wooden wrecks such as the London, leading to a noticeable loss of artefacts from the site.

Steve illustrates another major challenge facing archaeologists on the site, at the edge of a busy shipping channel:

A huge container ship dwarfs the dive vessel as it passes close by.
A large container ship passes close to the dive vessel near the London site. © Steve Ellis

These environmental threats in turn triggered a programme of finds recovery, with a very successful season in 2014 involving a collaboration between English Heritage, Cotswold Archaeology, Licensee divers, Southend Museums, and local volunteers, who sorted the recovered finds. Over 70 items were recovered, 41 by Cotswold Archaeology and 35 by the Licensees, a time capsule of life aboard a 17th century vessel, including bottles and personal items such as clay pipes and shoes.

A largely intact black leather latchet shoe viewed from above, next to an i
A well-preserved latchet shoe recovered from the wreck of the London. © Steve Ellis

Dan Pascoe, one of the site archaeologists, resumes the story with an account of recent archaeological activity concentrating on the guns:

‘The excavation thus far has revealed tantalizing clues towards determining which part of the ship survives on the seabed at site 2. The discovery of an intact gun carriage with the trucks situated against the remains of a deck, suggest the survival of parts of the gundeck. Directly either side of the carriage cheeks were the associated gun tackle, furniture and even gunner’s implements. The deck and carriage are situated on the vertical rather than horizontal, identifying that the remains of this part of the ship are on its side. Full excavation and recovery of the carriage this season will hopefully reveal the side of the hull and gun port.

South of the deck line, which would be below the gundeck, the excavation has uncovered  numerous cut logs of fired wood, galley tiles and bricks. In large ships, like the London, built prior to the mid-1660s, the cook room was found on a partial deck or platform within the forward part of the hold. Also found have been sections of partition planking, probably related to the internal structures of the ship, such has cabins and storerooms. The litter of hundreds of musket and pistol shot points to a possible location near the gunner’s storeroom. The present thinking is that site 2 is part of the bow from at least the gundeck down to hold, which includes the remains of a partial deck or platform. The excavation continues this spring and will hopefully be able to confirm the team’s initial thoughts and theories.’

The remains of a wooden gun carriage truck in poor visibility in the Thames
Gun carriage truck in situ in the Thames, which also illustrates the challenges of working in limited visibility. © Steve Ellis

Steve Ellis, the site’s Licensee, says:

‘It has been a fantastic experience working on such a fascinating wreck site, especially the discoveries we have come across to help us all understand more about life aboard a 17th century British naval ship. This would not have been possible if it wasn’t for the full support that we had from English Heritage, seeing that we are only amateur archaeologists.’

A photographic exhibition documenting the finds opens later this month at the Beecroft Art Gallery, Southend-on-Sea, Essex; underwater investigations are due to resume in summer 2015 and can be followed via the Twitter hashtag #LondonWreck1665.

With many thanks to Dan and Steve, who have contributed so much to this post.

No.43 The Vogelstruis

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An Ostrich with her Head in the Sand (or in the mud . . . )

Happy New Year!

To kick off another year of Wreck of the Week, here’s a ship which was captured, but not wrecked, at the Battle of Portland in 1653. She was the Vogelstruis, beautifully mangled in one English source as the ‘Fugelstrays‘!

The Vogelstruis was built for the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1640. She had already made six return voyages for the VOC when she set out on her last adventure, as part of the Dutch escort for a large convoy of merchantmen homeward-bound through the Channel. The English lay in wait to intercept the convoy and thus began the Battle of Portland, or the Three Days’ Battle as it is also known, in February 1653.

In his despatches the Dutch commander Maarten Tromp* noted that it had been impossible to rescue the disabled Vogelstruis drifting ‘in amongst the English fleet . . .’ , who captured her and sent her for Portsmouth. She entered English service under a simple translation of her original name, to become the Estridge or ‘ostrich’, a name that was redolent of the faraway climes of her earlier VOC service.

If a ship could be named Ostrich, then contemporary poets such as Richard Lovelace likened the ostrich to a ship: Eastrich! Thou featherd Foole, and easie prey, That larger sailes to thy broad Vessell needst (Lucasta’s Fanne, 1649).

She was hulked in 1653 and is reported in one source as becoming a careening hulk, a support vessel in the ‘careening’ or heeling over of ships on the shore to be cleaned and repaired, an essential but time-consuming process in the age of sail. As warships aged and/or became obsolete, they would be successively downgraded, passing through a number of incarnations after leaving active service, a process of decay that sometimes ultimately led to wrecking by abandonment or through structural weakness in adverse conditions.

There was another fate, and a common one in the 17th and 18th centuries as the demands of the Royal Navy for facilities increased: to be sunk as harbour foundations or as breakwaters at principal ports. Such was the fate of the Estridge, given variously as at Portsmouth or at Sheerness, but in all sources for the same purpose, and at the same date, in 1679. The Augustine, also captured from the Dutch in 1653, became a foundation at Harwich in 1665, a fate shared by the Play Prize, ex. French Le Jeu[x] in 1697. Even as late as 1830 HMS Glatton was scuttled as a breakwater foundation, again revealing Harwich’s rich heritage of ‘recycled ships’.

*the banner photo is of the Admiral van Tromp, a modern wreck named after Admiral Maarten Harpertsz. Tromp.