Historic wreck sites in Shetland, the Sound of Mull and the Clyde

Following Cotswold Archaeology’s work for Historic Scotland over the past 2 years we are pleased to report on some of our findings about historic wreck sites in Shetland, the Sound of Mull and the Clyde. The diving projects were carried out in conjunction with Mark James of MSDS Marine and Daniel Pascoe of Pascoe Archaeology Services.

Our work in Shetland focused on the wreck sites of a 17th-century Dutch East Indiaman, the Kennemerland, lost in 1664, and the Wrangels Palais, a Danish warship lost in 1687. These wreck sites lie within the Out Skerries Historic Marine Protected Area. We conducted dives on the sites to monitor the remains on the seabed, record accurate positions and assess whether there had been any changes since the last archaeological diver survey of the sites. This included locating cannon, cannon balls and anchors which strew the wreck sites, in addition to other, more exotic remains, including mercury on the Kennemerland site.

A number of fascinating historic wreck sites lie within the Sound of Mull. On behalf of Historic Scotland we carried out diver surveys in 2014 to monitor the condition of the wrecks of the Dartmouth, a Royal Navy frigate wrecked in 1690, the Mingary Castle wreck, thought to have been lost in a siege of the castle in 1644, and the Duart Point wreck, believed to be the remains of a small 17th-century warship, each of which forms the focus for its own Historic Marine Protected Area. As part of this work our team used diver video footage to produce detailed 3D photogrammetry models of the cannons on the Mingary Castle wreck (see below).

Photogrammetry model of the cannons on the Mingary Castle wreck site. © Crown copyright reproduced with permission of Historic Scotland

Our work has also included a large research project into the shipwrecks of the River Clyde. This project, named ‘Clyde-built’, aimed to assess the remains of the globally important Clyde shipbuilding industry within the river and estuary. ‘Clyde-built’ formed part of the ‘Source to Sea’ research programme, an ongoing major study of human interaction with the River Clyde through time, developed by the RCAHMS following on from recommendations by the Scottish Archaeological Research Framework (reported in the April 2014 Scottish Group Newsletter). As part of this project we identified numerous Clyde-built wrecks within the Clyde which ranged from dredgers to steam-yachts and paddle steamers to Clyde Puffers, the latter immortalised through Neil Munro’s stories of the Puffer, the Vital Spark. The project gathered data on the wreck sites from a range of sources including local museums, and, in particular, the recreational diving community who contributed vast amounts of information on the wrecks they regularly dive and helped us to uncover captivating stories of west-coast communities, international trade and technological development on the Clyde. This information will be available to RCAHMS to enhance Canmore records.