Modern Wrecks Project Progress presentation for MEDIN Partners’ meeting, 1/09/10 at IMarEST Martin Newman Datasets Development Manager English Heritage The Ramses II © Crown Copyright. NMR. The Wingham Collection. HAW 9416/05.

The National Monuments Record (NMR) Contains: 400,000 records of historic buildings and archaeological sites 10 million archive items 92,000 records of recording events nearly 400,000 records of designated sites Including maritime historic environment Crown copyright NMR 15216/06 The National Monuments Record Centre in Swindon © Crown copyright. NMR

The NMR Maritime Record Commenced 1990 by RCHME under instruction from DoE, with a remit of: –wrecks up to 1945 –12 nautical miles off shore 40,000 records of wrecks, casualties and submerged sites Updated through desk based research and flowlines (e.g. BMAPA protocol and Receiver of Wreck)

Types of Maritime Record in the NMR

Aims of the Project To bring maritime record in line with the terrestrial To recognise that post war wrecks have historic value To support future designation work To provide a link to archive photos held by the NMR To bring maritime reference data up to date The Ramses II aground on Lydney Sands in 1951 and starting to break up © Crown Copyright. NMR. The Wingham Collection. HAW 9416/05.

Project Progress 6 month project funded by MEDIN which started on 17 th May 2010 Project Officer recruited and trained Research combining data from a range of sources Started in the South of England Total of 360 wrecks recorded to date Estimated 475 further wrecks to record First 3 months worth of data already available online at 32 new terms have been added to NMR reference data and thesauri

Modern Wrecks Progress to Date

Some Examples Three submarines scuttled in 1957 to provide practice sonar targets Trawler which capsized after fouling a WWII crashed aircraft in 1974 which was also previously unrecorded A Hydrofoil that foundered in 1970 An Irish coaster Union Star which sank on her maiden voyage in 1981 and tragically the Penlee lifeboat (Solomon Brown) that tried to rescue the crew The Torrey Canyon which struck Pollards Rock and caused the worlds first major oil spill in 1967 A 1920s paddle steamer that sank whilst being towed to the breakers in 1967 A tug hit by a shell intended for the target vessel she was towing in 1946 The original Isle of Wight chain ferry that sank whilst being towed to the breakers in Yachts and 2 cabin cruisers demonstrating the growth in recreational sailing during the post war period

Future Work Keeping the modern wrecks up to date with new information Hulks recording Investigating options for recording to limit of UK controlled waters Maritime recording events Spatial depiction of named locations for casualty records Hulks near the Hoo Fort, Medway Kent © Crown copyright. NMR Ref: NMR 15044/14

Hulked ship used as a houseboat John Gay 1974 © Crown copyright. NMR Ref: AA081776