Summary
The site comprises a late C15 or C16 wrecked merchant vessel, which includes seabed remains of its cargo, together with stone cannon balls.
Reasons for Designation
The newly discovered wooden wreck site known as the Shingles Bank Wreck NW96, located within the western Solent, is designated a Protected Wreck Site for the following principal reasons:
* Period: The wreck predates 1580, and hence is a key survival of an early merchant ship;
* Rarity: Ships predating 1700 are extremely rare;
* Potential: The wreck has potential for surviving structure under the cargo mound, for the survival of small finds and organic remains, to inform on C16 lead manufacture and trade and the nature and construction of C16 merchant ships;
* Documentation: The importance of this wreck is enhanced by the information obtained from geophysical data and sonar survey;
* Vulnerability: Elements of the wreck exposed on the seabed remain vulnerable to uncontrolled salvage and theft;
* Group Value: Shingles Bank Wreck NW96 has group value with a similarly early and recently discovered wreck carrying cargo - also shipwrecked on the Shingles Bank of the Needles Channel (western Isle of Wight) – Unidentified protected wreck Cannon Site or Shingles Bank Wreck NW68 (National Heritage List for England 1469106.
History
The wreck was first identified by divers working with a local dive-charter skipper investigating a range of sites on the western side of the Isle of Wight. During these dives, a number of large lead ingots with unidentified markings, together with stone cannon balls and other archaeological material, was identified. The potential national importance of the NW96 wreck was subsequently recognised by the Maritime Archaeology Trust and the discovery taken further.
Initial assessment of the wreck indicates that the ingots were cast from a simple furnace known as a bole or bale. Boles fell out of use around 1580, and so bole-cast lead and the presence of stone cannon balls suggest that the site is C16 or very late C15 in date, as stone cannon balls were gradually replaced with iron shot and fell out of use during the late C16.
A single, coherent group of lead ingots strongly suggests that they represent part of the cargo from a former merchant ship. The shot is probably too far from the Tudor fortifications in the area to be the result of practice firing and may be associated with sea service artillery or carried as additional cargo.
The wreck is located some 3.1km south-west of Hurst Castle in the Needles Channel. Although reference has been found to the partial salvage of lead from a wreck near the Needles in 1547/8, the wreck remains unidentified. It could be a stray blown in from the English Channel, but the date, cargo and location suggest a connection with Southampton and its out-ports, which had a monopoly of English lead export until 1531.
The lack of a National Record of the Historic Environment entry for the wreck site confirms that this is a new discovery.
Details
Designation Order: 2022, No 535. Made 10th May 2022, Laid before Parliament: 12th May 2022, 2022 Coming into force: 2nd June 2022.
Restricted area: 50m radius within Longitude: -1.58302000, Latitude: 50.68705000.
The site comprises a number of lead ingots, together with ferrous concretions and stone cannon balls in an area measuring approximately 15m by 5m. A number of other features are visible close to the cargo mound on sonar data.
