Wreck’s identity remains an enigma

Some think that this ship's chest on display in Dunwich Museum, believed to be 15th- or 16th-century from Belgium or the Netherlands, could have been recovered from the Dunwich Bank Wreck. The elaborate locking mechanism certainly resembles Spanish Armada ship's chests recovered from Armada wrecks off the coast of Northern Ireland and now in the Castle Museum, Derry.

Graham Scott gives an update on the mysterious Dunwich Bank Wreck

This article first appeared in Discover Dunwich, issue 3, summer/autumn 2021

THE DUNWICH Bank Wreck is 700 metres out to sea off Dunwich Heath, roughly level with the Coastguard Cottages there. It was discovered by Stuart Bacon in the 1990s, Stuart hauled up the magnificent bronze cannon that greets you as you come in through the front door of Dunwich Museum. (See here for more on the Dunwich Dives and the Dunwich Bank Wreck cannon.)

Following in the footsteps of Stuart is Graham Scott, Senior Marine Archaeologist with Wessex Archaeology, who has been on several dives on the Dunwich Bank Wreck. He gave an update on the most recent (2020) dive on the Wreck to volunteers of Dunwich Museum at a talk via Zoom in March.

The Wreck is one of the most challenging marine archaeology environments in UK waters, "extremely difficult to investigate," says Graham. His team found the wreck wrapped in recently abandoned fishing nets, which they had to cut free before they could proceed. Visibility is poor to non-existent, with peat and sediment emptying into the sea from nearby rivers, constantly swirling around in a strong current. It seems the Wreck is gradually being buried by silt. Sometimes the divers could only work for an hour a day on the wreck, so gruelling were conditions there.

Little remains of the actual ship. What Stuart Bacon's team - working in poor visibility – took to be ship's timbers now appear to be natural wood that's been washed out to sea.

The Wreck may be scattered over a larger area than first thought. It’s difficult to date the wreck with certainty. Some ships from both the Dutch and English fleets were lost at the inconclusive Battle of Sole Bay (1672), several miles out to sea from Southwold, there are contemporary accounts of the masts of sunken fire ships visible above the waves south east of Aldeburgh soon after the battle. It's more likely the Wreck was a Spanish Armada ship, or possibly even a cargo ship transporting artillery for the army or navy of England's King Henry VIII (1509-1547) - he ordered many bronze cannons from Belgium and Germany.

Stuart Bacon's Dunwich Dives recovered these cannon balls, which were probably stacked in the hold at one point. These ones - on display at our special exhibition on the Dunwich Dives, are too small for the Dunwich Bank Wreck Cannon. There are smaller some iron swivels cannons for use in close-quarter combat still in the Wreck, these cannonballs could have been for them.

Dunwich Museum's magnificent bronze Dunwich Bank Wreck Cannon. Strong, swirling currents bringing with it silt and sand than empty into the sea from nearby rivers has sandblasted away most of the detail and decoration after 400 years on the seabed.

At least two bronze cannons rest on the seabed around the Wreck. On a rare day with some visibility in the Dunwich Dives the word "Remigy" could be read, engraved on one of these. ("Gun 3" - which was subsequently stolen from the seabed sometime around 2012.) This led to the identification of Dunwich Museum's cannon as one made by Belgium-based German gunfounder Remigy de Halut.

However, gun experts Ruth Brown and Kay Smith note that the squared-off ring on the breach of the Dunwich Museum cannon, its "breach dolphin" (a dolphin shaped handle or knob on the end of the breach) and the "bearded man's head" decoration round its muzzle are signatures of Gregor Löffler, another Hapsburg Empire gunfounder based in Augsburg in Germany.

Then there's a 1684 Royal Ordnance Office report of a Mr Lincoln being dispatched to Knodishall (not far from Dunwich) to buy a "brass" (bronze) cannon. Had it been recovered from the Dunwich Bank Wreck?

The "bearded man" decoration on the Dunwich Bank Wreck cannon's muzzle is now only just visible.

The word "Remigy" visible on the muzzle of another cannon, this one cast by him is outside the Town Hall in Enkhuizen, Netherlands. The cannon on which the name "Remigy" was briefly seen amid the Dunwich Bank Wreck was later stolen.

While a pair of dolphin handles on bronze cannons was almost standard throughout Europe at the time, a "breach dolphin" like this one on the Dunwich Bank Wreck cannon in Dunwich Museum is thought to be a signature of gunfounder Gregor Gregor Löffler. The dolphin comes out of a circular ring which is slightly squared off (not very visible anymore in the worn-away features of this cannon), also a feature of cannons cast by Löffler.

Another Gregor Löffler cannon, this one's a smaller piece from when he still worked in Innsbruck, Austria. It shows the characteristic Gregor Löffler "beared head ornament" more clearly. By kind permission of Peter Finer antique arms and armour dealers.

Words and photos © Matt Salusbury

The Light Ages (book review)

This review first appeared in Fortean Times magazine.

The Light Ages - a Medieval journey of discovery

Seb Falk, Penguin/Allen Lane, 2020

£10.99 paperback, 416 pages, bibliography, index

Front cover image for the purposes of criticism or review, fair dealing under the Copyright Act 1988

The myth of the "darkness of the Middle Ages" descending after the fall of Rome is dispelled in The Light Ages. Here historian, science historian and broadcaster Seb Falk demonstrates that "medieval science" is no contradiction in terms, while religion and science weren't antagonists in the medieval world. Falk illustrates this through a fascinating biography of John Westwyk, a thirteenth-century Benedictine monk based at St Albans abbey who wrote important treatises on astronomy, accidentally rediscovered in the 1950s.

The astrolabe was a flattened, portable model of the solar system made from brass discs slotted on top of each other, through which you could measure the "ascensions" of moving celestial bodies.

Functioning regardless of whether the universe was geocentric or heliocentric, astrolabes calculated how many daylight hours in each day, reckoned the dates of Easter, predicted when the heavens were moving into zodiacal "houses" whose influence may affect us, forewarned of planting seasons heralded by the appearance of certain stars visible just before dawn. Such calculations may have been a form of meditation for monks. Physicians' astrolabes chose auspicious times to administer bleedings. Previous inmates at St Albans had produced new discs to add to the astrolabe "for all altitudes.: Westwyk added a guide to these, demystifying earlier manuals and correcting their errors.

A copper-alloy astrolabe from the British Museum's collection. Dating from 1326, this example is believed to be the earliest surviving one made in England. It was on show at the BM's recent Thomas Beckett exhibition. Photo: Matt Salusbury

Astrolabes dominate The Light Age, and while the astrolabe was a "simplified" instrument compared to its predecessors, after a 39-page digression on astrolabes I was struggling with the azimuth and the obliquity of the elliptic. Aaargh!

This was an exciting time for astronomy. A standardised 24-hour day with 60-minute hours was proliferating, along with clocks. The long transition to Arabic numerals was apace. There was a flood of philosophical works emerging in Arabic, Greek and Hebrew - pagan sciences could now become "the handmaiden of religion".

My favourite section of The Light Age describes the rise of the universities. In 1336 the Pope called on monastic orders to send one in 20 monks to university. Today's Worcester College, Oxford began life as a Benedictine institution. As a graduate returning to the monastery, Westwyks' privileges included being excused midday Mass. The new universities were particularly awestruck by the recent rediscovery of Aristotle, his works quickly dominated the curriculum. Periodic ecclesiastical bans on the study of Aristotle were largely ignored.

Around 1370 Westwyk left for the bleak cliff-top subsidiary monastery at Tynemouth, taking with him some astronomy works to copy. Tynemouth was three degrees further north than Classical philosophers had ever been, so Westwyk wrote a treatise with instructions on engraving an astrolabe dial for "ascensions" at a new latitude, 55 degrees North.

Like many clerics, Westwyk joined the debacle that was the 1382 Bishop's Crusade (better known as Despenser's Crusade after Henry de Despenser, Bishop of Norwich). This Crusade fought not in the Holy Land, but in Belgium. Led by an incompetent warrior Bishop of Norwich, the crusaders -n outnumbered by Franco-Flemish forces loyal to anti-pope Clement - fought with extraordinary courage, the clerics in particular. They withdrew to England in disgrace within six months. Westwyk kept his head down for the next decade.

Westwyk next pops up at London's Benedictine inn, where he wrote a manual - in English, daring and innovative at the time - with instructions for building an enormous astrolabe six feet in diameter. This manual, Equatorie, is a computer and equation solver. Its 140 pages of tables allow the user to calculate the motion of the planets back to the birth of Christ and to any point in the future, adjusting for leap years, aided by charts for roots and "sexagesimal ninths". Nothing equalled the Equatorie until the first printed astronomy textbooks appeared nearly a century later.

An astrolabe of 1221 vintage, inscribed with Arabic letters, in London's Science Museum.

VERDICT: Joyous celebration of Medieval science - although a bit astrolabe-heavy! **** (four stars)

© Matt Salusbury 2021