[ News
| Homes
| Life
| Entertainment
| History
| Science
| Community
| Shop ]
| Sport
| Culture
| Cars
| Money
| Broadband
| Learning
| Health
| Dating
| Games ]
[ Text Only: Homepage ]
[ Graphical: Channel4 Homepage ]
[ Time Team Home | Return to programme index ]
Originally discovered by divers from RAF Lossemouth three years ago, an amazing shipwreck lies some 20 metres down on the seabed just off the coast of Kinlochbervie, in north-west Scotland. Finds of cannons, anchors and pottery have been discovered. But how did this ship end up here, and was she once part of the Spanish Armada?
How the Armada got to Scotland
A special team of marine archaeologists from the Archaeological Diving Unit (ADU) has invited Time Team along to see if some answers can be found about how this sunken time capsule came to be where it is – and whether it is, as the initial investigations would suggest, a Spanish Armada shipwreck dating from 1588. The unstable conditions on the seabed, on a coastline that is continuously battered by storms, mean that the surviving artefacts are in constant danger of being broken up or swept away. It is a 'classic case of rescue archaeology', according to ADU director Martin Dean.
The ROV is just one aspect of what must be the most high-tech 'dig' Time Team has ever been involved with. As well as the teams of RAF divers, who are in constant activity throughout the three days, the ADU operates from a specially equipped vessel, the Scimitar. The ADU divers use special diving suits, with video cameras attached to their helmets and equipment enabling them communicate directly with the Scimitar. A sonar acoustics system is used to plot the coordinates of finds; underwater metal detectors are deployed in search of cannon and other metal objects; and a torpedo-shaped magnetometer called 'the fish' replicates the usual work of the 'geofizz' (geophysics).
Meanwhile, although he's dived before, Tony Robinson has to take a refresher course so that he can get down to the wreck in person. 'It's fine underwater because you are so buoyant, but once you get out you've got all the extra weight of the equipment,' says Tony. 'You really do feel like a fish out of water.'
By Day Two the finds are being brought to the surface. They include surprisingly well-preserved pieces of Italian Renaissance pottery, a complete intact Majolica wine ewer and a buckled and contorted piece of lead sheet, which would probably have been used to effect a running repair on a damaged ship. Pottery specialist Duncan Brown is very impressed: 'This all looks like 16th-century Mediterranean material, which puts the ship in the right period for the Armada.' Tony finally gets to join in with Time Team digger Katie Hirst, as they search a nearby kelp (seaweed) forest in an attempt to locate a rumoured lost cannon. The special marine magnetometer is also employed to help in the quest.
But bad weather is closing in and storms are forecast. Since each dive is limited to just 28 minutes – and everything takes far longer underwater than it would on the surface – the race is on to lift more finds from the seabed before the conditions make further diving impossible.
The third day sees only limited diving before it is finally called off altogether because of the bad weather. However, this does give the team a chance to have a good look at the material that has been discovered so far. Duncan Brown confirms the important nature of the finds. 'I've been astounded,' he says. 'This has got to be the best collection of Italian Renaissance pottery excavated from an archaeological context in this country. I'm sure I can safely say that.'
An amazing ceramic salt cellar is just one of the pieces of the quality you would expect to find on the tables of dukes and princes. Without a doubt, these were extremely high-status wares. So what would they have been doing on a ship that was part of the Armada invasion fleet?
The answer, according to the experts, is that they may have reflected the confidence of the Spanish nobility as they set sail for the invasion of England: they were taking with them the sort of items that they expected to use after a successful conquest. Alternatively, they may simply have belonged to a wealthy captain, who saw no reason why he shouldn't enjoy the same luxuries at sea as on land.
Whatever the explanation, the evidence points strongly to this being an Armada shipwreck. It was probably not a warship (the cannon seem too small and too few for that), but more likely a supply ship. There is even a previously unaccounted for ship that this might be – the supply vessel San Gabriel. It is unlikely that many of its crew survived its wreck on this inhospitable coast back in 1588, leaving it to archaeologists and historians to try to piece together the story of their final voyage from this time capsule at the bottom of the sea.
Television film director Mel Morpeth has worked on several Time Team programmes before, but this was something a bit different. This is what he had to say about the experience:
Yes I have. About five years ago I worked on a wreck in the South Pacific, which was very interesting.
The basic premise is that everything takes at least twice as long to do. On an ordinary Time Team you have three camera crews running around shooting everything, but with marine archaeology everything has to be a lot more controlled. It was good working with the ADU (Archaeological Diving Unit) because they had a strict schedule of work to be done each day. That gave us a framework to work around and impose our filming schedule on.
They were brilliant. Working with the armed services you tend to get things done really quickly. Every morning they had a briefing of the tasks for the day and by lunch time they had done them all! They work really efficiently with a proper command structure and great competence.
We were lucky really as it was filmed in July last year, but by the end we did start to get the storm warnings. It turned out to be a westerly gale, which is the one that blows you back onto the rocks and cliffs – just the wrong sort of weather. In fact it was just the sort of weather that probably caused the ship to come to grief all those years ago.
Safety was everything. To get Phil, Tony and Katie into the water required at least another three people with them just to check everything was running along safely.
The whole project was an exercise in logistics. I couldn't get down to the wreck myself, so I directed the shoot from onboard ship. We had pre-dive chats about what we wanted and then we had an underwater camera operator together with some helmet mounted cameras and the ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) which also held a camera – a bit like the 'trench-cams' we used on the Live last year. It was fairly flexible for filming. Some of the divers were also working with umbilical lines so that we could communicate with them from the surface.
It would be great to go back to the wreck if we could excavate further. Underwater filming is expensive because of the problems involved, plus the extra professionals required and the need to charter ships for the duration, but I certainly enjoyed doing the programme and would love to do it again.
How could a ship from the Spanish Armada end up wrecked off the coast of north-west Scotland? The answer is that after being harassed by English ships as they passed up the Channel, Philip II's great invasion fleet of 1588 was caught in a storm, which carried it into the North Sea and along the east coast of Britain. The 130 ships then tried to follow a Scandinavian trade route by turning west over the north of Scotland in an attempt to take them out into the Atlantic. From there they attempted to complete a long anti-clockwise route around the British Isles and back to Spain. Unfortunately for the Spanish, storms blew many of the ships back onto the coasts of Scotland and Ireland, where many perished.
According to specialist Dr Felipe Fernandez Armesto, of Queen's University, London, it is one of the great myths of English history that the Armada was defeated in a great naval battle led by Francis Drake. In fact, he says, 'Drake played very little part in the Armada campaign. He spent most of it gadding around looking for prizes and feathering his own nest and left most the fighting to his fellow commanders. His role was negligible.'
The English fleet was actually commanded by Lord Howard of Effingham. He pursued the Armada up towards the Netherlands, where it was meant to be meeting up with an invasion army before transporting it across to England. The English had used virtually all their ammunition against the Spanish ships by the time they anchored off Gravelines, in modern Belgium. It was here on the evening of 7 August that the Armada was forced to break anchor as a result of the famous attack by English fireships.
Despite all their efforts, though, the English had managed to sink just one Spanish ship. The real damage to the Armada was to be done by the weather.
From 9 August onwards, increasing winds blew the Spanish ships further and further into the North Sea. The terrible storm that erupted on 13 August scattered both the English and the Spanish fleets; indeed, the English fleet suffered so badly that many people thought the Armada must have been successful. But in the age of sail, there was no way back down the Channel for the Spanish. Instead, they headed north, seeking out the long route back to Spain.
Over the next few months, many ships – about two thirds of the 130 in the Armada – did make it back. But many others were lost in further storms off the coasts of Scotland and Ireland. One vessel was wrecked off the Shetlands; another found safe harbour for a while at Mull. More than 25 are known to have floundered off the Irish coast. Those sailors who made it ashore were often killed by the English militia.
The ship sunk off the Scottish coast at Kinlochbervie may have been seeking shelter, but lost its way in the atrocious conditions, lashed by the tail end of an Atlantic hurricane. Naval charts at the time were rudimentary; many rocks and treacherous stretches of water would not even have been marked. One of the finds raised from the seabed at Kinlochbervie was a sounding weight, used to measure the depth of water. It may have been one of the last items used by the crew before their vessel was dashed against the rocks and sunk.