Race against time to study HMS Northumberland as shifting sands expose part of well-preserved wreck off Kent
The British warship HMS Northumberland was built in 1679 as part of a wave of naval modernisation overseen by Samuel Pepys, a decade after he had stopped writing his celebrated diary and gone on to become the Royal Navy’s most senior administrator.
Twenty-four years later, after the ship had taken part in many of the major naval battles of its day, it was at the bottom of the North Sea, a victim of the Great Storm of 1703, one of the deadliest weather disasters in British history.
Now, more than three centuries later, the Northumberland is giving up its secrets thanks to shifting sands off the Kent coast, which have exposed a large section of its hull.
A survey has revealed that the ship is in a remarkable state of preservation, with not only its timbers but ropes and even unopened casks having been protected from erosion and decay in the sand.
