Beneath the waters of Plymouth Sound lies an extraordinary archaeological record stretching back thousands of years.
Finding, recording and investigating that history is the work of The SHIPS Project, a Plymouth based Community Interest Company bringing together maritime archaeologists, divers, researchers and volunteers.
It is not a conventional business. It exists for the benefit of the community, with much of its work carried out by volunteers and supported through funding and partnerships. That work ranges from investigating shipwrecks and recording objects recovered from the seabed to archaeological surveys, marine conservation, research, training and public engagement.
One of its most fascinating current investigations concerns a wreck in Plymouth Sound near Drakes Island.
The team told Plymouth Post that evidence they are examining could place the wreck in the 1560s or 1590s, potentially putting it in the period of Sir John Hawkins and the early English voyages to West Africa.
Among the finds are copper manillas, distinctive horseshoe shaped metal objects used as a form of currency in West Africa and closely associated with the trade in enslaved people. The wreck has also yielded cannon, an anchor, pottery, a lead ingot and remains associated with the ship’s rigging, clues which could eventually help establish when the vessel sailed, where it came from and what it was doing in the Sound.
The discovery is particularly significant to Plymouth. Hawkins sailed from the city on his first slave trading voyage to West Africa in 1562 and organised further voyages in the years that followed. On the team’s current dating, the wreck would sit within a generation of those pioneering English voyages.
However, the identity of the vessel and the precise nature of its voyage have not yet been established.
This is only one part of the project’s work. Across the Sound and its surrounding waters, the team records everything from shipwrecks and aircraft remains to lost anchors and individual objects from the seabed. Some of those discoveries take the maritime story back far beyond Drake and Hawkins, with ancient anchors and other evidence of activity stretching into prehistory, as well as finds from the Roman period.
On land, the team has also been carrying out archaeological work at Barn Pool at Mount Edgcumbe, involving members of the community in investigating another part of the area’s long history.
Traditional historical research is combined with modern underwater archaeology. Divers record objects and wreck sites on the seabed, while sonar, magnetometer surveys, underwater photography and mapping allow archaeologists to build a far more detailed picture of what survives below the surface.
The project also records objects which have already been recovered. Finds are measured, photographed, drawn and researched before the information is made publicly available, preserving knowledge that might otherwise be lost.
Its work is not restricted to archaeology. While surveying the Sound, the team encountered large quantities of debris on the seabed, which led to environmental projects aimed at removing pollution from local waters, including the 1000 Tyres Project.
The SHIPS Project began in 2010 and became a Community Interest Company in 2021. Today it brings together professional expertise, volunteers, universities, diving organisations and other partners to investigate a maritime landscape used by people for thousands of years.
Plymouth is famous around the world for the history that began from its shores. The work of The SHIPS Project is revealing just how much of that history is still waiting beneath the water.
Photographs © Wayne Perry / Plymouth Post