Experts face “a race against time” to study the wreck of a 17th century warship which is deteriorating because of the elements.
HMS Northumberland sank off the Kent coast more than 320 years ago but is said to be “exceptionally well-preserved”.
However, Historic England has warned it is at “high risk of deterioration” due to “shifting sands, strong currents and marine boring organisms”.
According to the heritage group, divers surveying the wreck, which is twenty metres deep underwater and nine miles off the coast, have discovered that it is more complete than first thought.
They have found multiple wooden decks, well-preserved wooden chests and coils of rope, preserved by being “covered by sand and seabed sediments for hundreds of years”.
And experts say the Protected Wreck Site could “tell us more about shipbuilding during the Stuart period”.
But it also said to be “fragile” and “unstable”, and more of it is being exposed every day.
Paul Jeffery, the conservation body’s marine team leader, said: “The completeness of the Northumberland wreck site is remarkable.
“It is a race against time as more of the Northumberland wreck becomes exposed.”
Built in Bristol in 1679, the Northumberland went down during the Great Storm of November 1703 on the treacherous Goodwin Sands off the Kent coast, along with three other warships, the Restoration, the Stirling Castle and the Mary.
They were all part of Queen Anne’s fleet, the last Stuart monarch, reigning from 1702 to 1714.
Since then, there have been six ships named HMS Northumberland, the last being a Type 23 frigate that was launched in 1992 and decommissioned earlier this year.
The wreck lies nine miles offshore over a large area of the seabed between 15-20m (49-65 feet) deep and is covered by concretion (irregular mineral masses formed by chemical precipitation) or marine deposits.
There is evidence of an “extensive hull structure on the seabed possibly lying on its port side, including exposed deck planks and the wooden skeleton or frame of the ship,” according to Historic England.
Divers have also uncovered “exceptionally well-preserved organic material, such as coils of rope on a timber deck, multiple wooden chests – some containing musket balls and one completely sealed”.
There are 13 cannons around the site, seven of them made of iron, as well as part of a wooden gun carriage, swords and muskets and copper cauldrons.
Dan Pascoe, licensee of the Northumberland, who carried out a survey to monitor its condition in partnership with Historic England and specialist archaeological consultancy, MSDS Marine, said it has the potential “to be one of the best-preserved wooden warships in the UK”.
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Historian Dan Snow, who has visited the site and made a film about the latest survey work, called the Northumberland “THE missing link”, as it can “fill in crucial details of shipbuilding and life at sea at that pivotal moment in our [Stuart era] history”.
First designated as a Protected Wreck Site in 1981, the Northumberland has been on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register since 2017.
Future work on the site may include taking wood samples to find out more about the ship’s construction and help confirm its identity.
