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This article first appeared in Conservation News 82. The discovery and lifting of the Newport ShipKate Hunter, Keeper of Conservation at Newport Museum and Art Gallery, reports on the complex recovery operation to lift the medieval timbers.The discovery of a nearly complete medieval ship on the banks of the River Usk in Newport, only five minutes walk from Newport Museum and Art Gallery, initiated an exhausting but exhilarating summer. On 21 June, Kate Howell from the Glamorgan Gwent Archaeological Trust was carrying out a watching brief on the site of a new Theatre and Arts Centre and found timbers which turned out to be a seventeenth or eighteenth century drain. Excavations commenced and five days later an exploratory pit below the drain revealed what were subsequently identified as disarticulated ship timbers. Over the next ten days these timbers were found to be part of the dismantling process of a large clinker built vessel. Excavation was contained within a rectangular cofferdam, and the ship, by great good fortune, lay diagonally from corner to corner across the dam so that greatest possible part had survived. Unfortunately, the cofferdam had cut both bow and stern, and these areas have yet to be investigated. The surviving visible remains, however, were substantial, with a length of 21 metres and a maximurn width of eight metres. The timber was oak, apart from the keel which was beech, and it was easily the most solid and best-preserved waterlogged wood I have ever worked on. The starboard (right hand) side had collapsed whilst the port side remained upright. At some date after deposition port side timbers had been chopped away, possibly to make way for a small jetty. The greater part of the starboard side had therefore survived, although it had clearly undergone some distortion during burial. In total 63 framing timber (ribs) survive, together with 32 strakes (hull timbers) on the starboard side and sixteen strakes on the port side. Stringers, ceiling planking and small filler boards attached to the frames by wooden treenails made up the inner hull planking. There was evidence of footing for a single deck. Central to the keel was a 10 m maststep, complete with pump hole. Huge quantities of iron nails, many consisting of 10 mm thick uncorroded metal, held the clinker planking of the hull together. The quality of the workmanship, particularly the long scarf joints on the framing timbers, some of which comprise seven separate pieces of wood, was clear, as were the tool marks. As the excavation progressed so did the quantity of associated finds. On 8 July I lifted the first of several leather shoes, together with other as yet unidentified leather objects. Finds since have included textiles, both sailcloth and woollen clothing, rope, cork, Portuguese coins and pottery, stone cannonballs, functional wooden artefacts related to rigging, barrel staves and personal artefacts such as two combs and a gaming piece. On 11 July the media learnt about the ship. Initially the Argus, Newport's local newspaper, carried the story and subsequently it was picked up by HTV Wales, the BBC and the national press. Most of us involved in the project have now been interviewed and photographed many times over and several of our rather muddy posteriors have graced the pages of such publications as The Guardian and Current Archaeology. Until late July, dating of the ship was based on the artefacts found within her and upon structural details. Initially thought to be seventeenth century in date, partially due to the well-preserved nature of the timber, as excavation progressed various pieces of evidence began to suggest she was somewhat older. In late July Nigel Nayling, ship consultant and dendrochronologist, produced a date Of 1465, making the ship unique. At this point I stopped pretending to work part time. |
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In the meantime, the levels of interest and enthusiasm for the ship within Newport and South Wales were building. Between 3000 and 7000 people attended two open evenings, on 7 and 14 August, respectively. By 14 August people were willing to queue for over an hour to see the ship and the viewing time had to be extended to sunset. On 12 August a piece about the Newport Ship featured on Radio 4's Today programme. Throughout, the archaeologists had been working to very tight deadlines, with last minute extensions. At this point there was no intention to lift or preserve ship. After the open evening on 14 August local people organised a large public meeting, attended by Paul Flyn MP and Rosemary Butler, Assembly Member. The SOS (Save Our Ship) campaign was launched. With great flair and imagination SOS began serious political lobbying. From 16 August they mounted a 24-hour vigil outside the site, encouraging passing motorists to sound their horns in support. As the main road is adjacent, it was obvious on site that they were getting a lot of support. On 21 August a flotilla of small craft sailed up the River Usk to the site and hundreds of people turned out to cheer. On 22 August taxi drivers in Newport threatened to bring Newport to a standstill, via a slow convoy, if the ship was not saved. On 23 August, when the next deadline was reached, the Welsh Assembly announced �3.5 million to lift, conserve and display the Newport Ship. Because the ship was essentially a rescue excavation - with an eleventh hour rescue package - long-term forward planning had not been possible, although intelligent speculation meant that we were ready with lists of possible suppliers when the moment came. With the decision to save the ship came the necessity of finding somewhere to store the excavated timbers. I was asked to visit the former Corus steelworks in Llanwern, and look at a number of industrial units, which might be possible options. The most suitable unit measured 50 x 50 metres. Agreement was reached with Corus and we moved in on 3 September. At this point I had about a week before the first timbers started to arrive. With a great deal of enthusiastic help from Corus staff, the unit has been converted into a waterlogged wood recording and storage area. There is now roller shutter access for lorries and other industrial scale lifting gear. Two lengths of 30 m metal benching will allow complete runs of the hull planking to be recorded together. Heavy duty water supply is via a standpipe. Importantly there are no neighbours who might object to possible flooding. Seventeen tanks, none smaller than 5 x 5 metres, have been constructed to hold ship timbers. Overall timber quantities and sizes could only be estimated until we started to take the ship apart, but each tank was designed to hold particular types of timber, i.e. keel, maststep, frames etc. Such was the size and weight of many timbers - several weigh between 200 and 400 kg - that lifting and handling was undertaken on an industrial scale. One of the advantages of being on the Corus site is the immediate access to a staff used to handling heavy items, and the appropriate lifting gear. The ship and the site dictated the lifting process. Essentially she was taken apart in the reverse order to which she was built. There were a number of reasons for choosing this option. Firstly she was sitting at the very bottom of the cofferdam. Any attempt to take her out in a cradle would have meant digging underneath the ship and thereby undermining the cofferdam itself. Additionally a large number of concrete piles had been driven into the site before the ship was discovered and these would have had to be removed. Secondly, by dismantling the ship piece by piece we have ensured that all waterlogged wood conservation options are open to us. The choice of conservation treatment will certainly be one of the issues investigated at length during the post excavation process. Because of the damage done by the piles the largest single piece lifted is part of the maststep at 6 m long. Therefore, freeze-drying could be one of those options. The lifting process itself was not easy. Each piece had to be wedged apart and the treenails or iron nails sawn to free it. So hard were the treenails that the site life of a saw was less than two days. Framing timbers in particular proved very hard to move. Once free, each timber was slung or paletted out of the site by crane. The crane crew became as enthusiastic about the ship as the archaeologists and were invaluable to the success of the lift. Both HTV and the BBC, who propose to make documentaries, filmed much of the process. One of the most nerve-wracking moments in my professional life was being wired for sound, on camera, whilst the maststep, one of the more important pieces of the ship, was slung and craned out of the site towards me, as I waited to receive it onto a lorry. Overall, the lifting process took just over thirteen weeks with the last piece of keel coming out on Saturday 9 November. Until that date the public were able to view the process from a platform provided at the behest of Newport City Council. This remained constantly staffed by members of the SOS campaign. The archaeologists are now investigating the archaeology beneath the ship, including several large struts, which may give dendro dates for deposition. I feel enormously privileged to have been part of a team which has lifted one of the largest medieval vessels ever to be recovered from a terrestrial site. However, I do not underestimate the volume of work which now awaits. This is the start of a very long recording, conservation, publication and display process.
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