Wreck & Rescue at Gunwalloe: Protected Wrecks | Wreck-related remains | Shipwreck rescue | 3D models
This page lists the artefacts 3D scanned for the Wreck and Rescue project. The models can be viewed online via Sketchfab, or for advanced users, downloaded via a GitHub repository.
Tradition says the former church screen came from the St Anthony wreck of 1527; if so, most likely it was funded by local lords who acquired much of the lucrative shipwreck salvage. These panels, built into a door, and another set in a north door, are remains of the screen (repainted c1975).
Joanna Mattingly, specialist on Cornish screens, has shown how one here would have transformed the church, spanning it and reaching the wall tops, elaborately carved, coloured and gilded. It was even musical. Where it crossed the front of this south aisle, steps in the wall took singers to a platform on its top, the ‘rood loft’ which bore sculptures including a cross or rood.
Figures on the screen base were identified by signs, like these Apostles (from left to right) – James (with a club), Matthew (a purse), Simon (a sword), and Jude (a halberd). The old screen probably had all 12 apostles and other holy figures also in groups of four.
Like those on the south side of the church, these panels, built into a door, came from a screen said to derive from the St Anthony wreck of 1527, most likely because it was funded from the salvage. Towards the east end of this north aisle, you can see above the pulpit old cuts in the tops of arches and in walling, where the screen with its forward-slanting top was inserted across the breadth of the church. Above the screen was a construction called a ‘rood loft’, with a walkway and a parapet bearing a cross.
Joanna Mattingly, from her work on Cornish screens, suggests the base could have featured St Winwaloe, patron of the parish; St Winifred, saint of a holy well nearby, lost to the sea; St Breaca of the mother church in Breage; and Jesus, for Hailes Abbey, Gloucs., which held the church from the 13th century. Breage Church has late medieval wall paintings showing aspects of coastal life; a mermaid with mirror, and a pescatarian saint.
The lead ball here, hollow and with a potential ignition hole, has been interpreted as a form of ‘stink pot’ (information at Truro Museum). This was a type of grenade; larger grenades are also among the ‘Wreck and Rescue’ models. The ‘pots’ were filled with sulphur, gunpowder and small projectiles, to make a suffocating stink besides bombarding and burning enemy ships.
The ball contains silt, which may have traces of chemicals from the time of its use. As with archaeological excavations on land, analysis of finds is needed to discover their meanings as fully as possible. This can include studying maker’s marks, signs of wear, and residues of contents, as well as detail of their context in a wreck.
The St Anthony carried cannon to protect her cargo; as shown by historian John Chynoweth, this was estimated at the time as worth £18,880, around ten times the annual income of a wealthy peer, so it equates to millions of pounds today.
One of various brass candlestick pieces raised by divers from the St Anthony wreck of 1527, along with other small metal artefacts such as navigational instruments, all relatively durable, resistant to dispersal by the sea, and easy to recover. The candle holder has holes to take a support, forming part of a candelabra, and has been identified as a Dutch type of design (information at Charlestown Museum).
The rich cargo of the royal ship also included little brass lions. These were recognised by Anthony Randall, who led the team diving and researching on the ship in the 1980s, as ornamental supporters for the base of a grand candlestick. He found a photo of a candelabra with similar lion supporters (see St Anthony wreck page), and some comparable supporters at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A).
Other small treasures on the ship, as noted by historian John Chynoweth, included ‘Precious stones, pearls, chains, brooches and other jewels of gold….’
The half-round copper ingots that led to the rediscovery of the St Anthony were found by chance. As related by Anthony Randall, one ingot, being suitably heavy, flat-bottomed and smooth on top, was put to use as a doorstop, before fellow diver Michael Hall recognised it!
Eight thousand ingots like this were recorded in the cargo list of the ship, which describes them as ‘cakes’ of copper. John Chynoweth includes the list in his 1968 history of the wreck, published in the journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall in Truro, home of the museum where this ingot is preserved. From his study of court records of the disputed salvage, he concludes that the local lords, known to have seized a silver cross washed up in 1530, probably also seized most other items found.
In 1982 when the site was designated a Protected Wreck, other ingots were recovered, including one of silver which has also been modelled for ‘Wreck and Rescue’.
The casting here, made of zinc, is a replica of an original of pure silver, made in the same quarter-spherical or ‘melon’ shape. One of the half-round copper ingots from the St Anthony is also among the ‘Wreck and Rescue’ models.
The original silver ingot is in the British Museum, London. It weighs 17.5lbs, and is 99.5% pure silver. It was found with others scattered in Gunwalloe’s Fishing Cove. Eighteen ‘cakes or blocks of silver bullion’, worth £2,250 at the time, were recorded in the cargo list before the St Anthony sailed, as transcribed by historian John Chynoweth.
Timber washed up from lost deck cargoes or shipwrecks is documented from medieval times, at Gunwalloe as elsewhere on the coasts of Cornwall and beyond. A ‘cord’ of wood from Winnianton (the manor of Gunwalloe) is noted in the accounts for 1297/1298 of the Duchy of Cornwall’s ‘havener’ (in charge of maritime property and rights), as recorded by Maryanne Kowlaseki. Beaches were scoured for wreck timbers useful for buildings, fences, or fuel, traditionally claimed by being hauled up above high water.
This timber was found in 2008 by a Mr Holyer on Jangye-ryn, so may have come from the 1684 Schiedam wreck there. It was assessed by Wessex Archaeology, and considered to be possibly part of a ship’s curved lower frame, with two treenails (hard wooden fixing pins) and four holes made for other pins. Organic remains at the Schiedam site itself include the wheel of a carriage, seen with licensed diver David Gibbins in a photo courtesy of the late Mark Milburn.
A carved piece of white marble, found by diving on the Schiedam wreck of 1684 before the site was designated a Protected Wreck in 1982. The stone is cleanly cut on all sides, with saw marks on one face and a possible fixing point underneath it.
The piece appears to be the base of a Classical style architectural carving. It may have been retrieved from some higher status premises in Tangier to be loaded on to the ship for evacuation to England along with other valuable fittings, gear and guns.
Anthony Randall, in researching the Schiedam shipwreck, found a petition to the King from survivors of the Schiedam wreck, from Henry Dale, a Master Caulker, and six other named Caulkers, requesting payment for wages due and in consideration of ‘their Extraordinary Service at Tangier in working night and day for the demolishing thereof’.
This lead weight was recovered by divers from the 1684 wreck of the Schiedam. From its form, it was identified as a stabiliser for the main steering compass of the ship. A weight would have been needed to limit swinging of the compass in heavy seas (information at Charlestown Museum).
The lead is round with a slightly domed profile, and different textures on its under and upper surfaces. It measures around 11cm across and is up to 1.5cm thick. It is in very good, fresh condition, probably because it was protected by casing, unless it was a spare which was carefully stored.
A pair of copper vessels from the Schiedam wreck of 1684, although warped and eroded, are clearly ‘nested’ or stored one inside the other. These may be ship’s measures for gun powder, or food (information at Charlestown Museum). They could have been stored this way for easy selection of differently sized measures and/or efficient use of space.
Other types of metal artefacts found on the wreck, stowed rather like this, were clearly not for use on board, though. Hoops for fixing to wooden barrels, for example, were more roughly nested together. As described by Anthony Randall, the Schiedam was a ‘floating scrapyard’, with her load of guns, gear and goods salvaged from Tangier as the English evacuated their fortifications there, and the bundling of artefacts as well as their differing types may reflect this scrap character of the metal.
One of two lead vessels, found in 1971 at the 1684 Schiedam wreck ─ square in section, open-topped, with lugs containing holes for supension. As noted in a 1994 dive report by Anthony Randall, several have been found on other wrecks too, but it’s not clear what they were used for. Anthony’s photo, on the ‘Wreck and Rescue’ page for the Schiedam, shows the two from this wreck, together with another (left) from the Hollandia, a Dutch East Indiaman lost with all aboard in 1743 off the Isles of Scilly (CSHER, MCO 42952). Possible uses, suggested at the 2023 ‘Wreck and Rescue’ event at Gunwalloe, include ─ gunpowder measure; container for shot, candles, or salt; holder for a light, suspended to allow roll with the ship; mould, for example for wax; weighing pan for scales; hammock weight; and jewellery box.
The vessel bears the date 1675; this is in relief, and back-to-front, having been carved into the mould the artefact was made in.
Covered in a crust of iron corrosion with embedded beach gravel, and some larger slates, this object was found on Jangye-ryn in 2019 by local historian Robert Felce. Bob identified it as a ship’s swivel gun, from its size and form; he found several encrusted grenades too, also modelled by ‘Wreck and Rescue’.
As it was washed up on the beach nearby, the gun probably came from the Schiedam, wrecked close to the shore in 1684. It could have been mounted to defend this merchant ship, which had been taken as a ‘prize’ by the English, and shortly before that captured by pirates.
Guns recovered by diving on the wreck include a swivel gun, pictured in a photo on the ‘Wreck and Rescue’ page for the Schiedam, from Historic England archives.
The site of the Schiedam itself, like Bob’s gun, is largely covered in a hard ‘concretion’ of corrosion, silt, and stones; on top of that are ever-fluctuating layers of loose sand and gravel.
Several grenades, coated in silt and shingle ‘concreted’ by corrosion, have been found by Robert Felce searching the beach at Jangye-ryn. Like the concreted gun found in the same way, they were probably swept here from the nearby site of the Schiedam wreck of 1684.
These artefacts are particularly remarkable as they include wooden bungs, which held the gunpowder in the grenades, plugging the holes made for igniting them. Residues of gunpowder surviving in the grenades may have helped preserve the wood, normally lost unless remaining waterlogged or in other special conditions.
Divers found this ‘billet’ or regular length of timber at the site where the East Indiaman, the President, was wrecked in 1684. It’s been identified as a type of hardwood, known as sanderswood, sandalwood, or dyewood, from south east Asia.
Dyewood was a valuable, frequently traded commodity, and this piece will have been part of the cargo of the ship, along with spices, and even diamonds. When boiled, dyewood produced a rich red dye, used to colour cloth (information at Shipwreck Treasure Museum, Charlestown.)
The Castle headland has remains of an extraordinary Victorian ‘Dollar Mine’. This was designed to recover a wreck cargo of silver dollars from c1784 said to lie in an inlet below – or perhaps primarily to attract investors to fund a series of salvage companies.
The site is inaccessible now, due to cliff falls, tides, and rising sea level. The 3D model, made by SUMO from drone imagery, shows a track cut in the cliffs noted in 1848. It ran down to the inlet where there are traces of failed dam works. An adit is said to have led out for 12m under the sea, before being buried in shingle and boulders. Slight hollows on top of the headland may have been used for the tents of the ‘dollar men’.
The 3D model shows too how the Castle appears from the sea, and captures the rampart across its ‘neck’ which defined it as a central place for trade and display in later prehistoric times – the cliff castle, for which it is still named, now a Scheduled Monument.
Finds of Spanish silver dollars at Gunwalloe are recorded before the mid-19th century. Eight were said to have been found in 1866. Some accounts mention that local farm boys would come to the beach to eat their dinners and search for coins. From their dates, the dollars have been attributed to a wreck of c1784, although no such wreck has been identified in documentary records.
Stories are likely to have been distorted by the promoters of salvage companies that developed a ‘dollar mine’, on the Castle headland, the site of which is captured in another ‘Wreck and Rescue’ model. However, some coins survive, including these, transformed by the wear of the waves and by coatings of concreted sea-bed silt and pebbles.
Similar coins are noted and illustrated in a parish history of 1875 by the Rev. Cummings, which gives more details of the salvage attempts. They included several recognisable as ‘pillar dollars’, bearing the Pillars of Hercules as part of their design.
Divers on Low Lee, a ledge lurking just under the waves west of Gunwalloe across Mount’s Bay, have recovered a wide range of lost cargo and ballast. A report in preparation by diver and archaeologist Kevin Camidge presents finds including organic remains which are rarer survivals ─ a turned wooden bowl, reconstructed by a member of CISMAS, and a ship’s ‘deadeye’ or rounded block for rigging ropes. One of the more durable finds, a pewter lid, has a distorted hole, possibly from a gun shot.
CISMAS divers have recorded finds in their undersea contexts, helping establish their meaning for past maritime trade in Penzance. Many yellow bricks were found in a deposit now dispersed but formerly identifiable as ballast, shaped like the boat it came from. The example modelled shows the thinness and irregularity that indicate these are 17th or 18th century Dutch bricks; several Dutch ships are known to have been wrecked or stranded here in that period.
This domed hollow silver fastener, with attached brass disc (now distorted), measures around 3cm across. The front is decorated with a scene from the Bible story of Tobias and the Angel. The winged Angel Raphael protects and guides Tobias, who while bathing in the river Tigris with his companion dog is attacked by a fish leaping out of the water to bite him. On the back of the dome are several small marks, and the initials HB incised in the silver.
The object may be associated with a shipwreck, as it came from a beach, although its story remains obscure. It is unusual, and difficult to identify or date closely, but is likely to be 18th century and northern European, possibly Dutch, as indicated by initial assessment. (Thanks to Kirstin Kennedy, Curator of Metalwork 1450-1900 at the V&A, Jane Perry, traditional jewellery specialist, and Maureen Needham and Dixon Pickup of the British Button Society.)
This unusual wooden book, carved from wreck timber, appears to be a local carpenter’s memorial to the victims of the wreck of the barque Santesta. It is skilfully made in the shape of a great book, resembling the sculpted bibles forming part of the ornamentation on some Victorian gravestones. The incised text on one ‘cover’ is less accomplished, though, so perhaps this was an apprentice’s piece. The text has ruled lines like a school slate, and some spacing and spelling irregularities. It reads;
WRECKED AT GUNWALLO / BARQUE / LOADEN WITH COFFY AND / COTTON 1865 / 16 MEN DROWNED
A space left after ‘barque’ may have been meant for the name of the ship, perhaps not then known to the carver. She may now be identified as the Santesta, a Brazilian barque lost near Fishing Cove on November 14th 1865, with only two of the crew of 19 saved; this wreck was noted in parish records for January 1866, when the bodies of three victims came ashore.
This 32-pounder iron cannon was one of two raised in 1964 by the Naval Air Command Sub-Aqua Club based at Culdrose near Helston. The Historic Environment Record, drawing on the findings of diver Richard Larn, identifies the Anson as one of Cornwall’s most extensively salvaged wrecks, and notes that nine or ten more cannons remain on the site, generally buried in the shifting sand.
Cannons, with their large size and high value and utility, could attract salvage attempts starting soon after ships were wrecked. These are often recorded in historic newspaper reports, accessible by subscription through the British Newspaper Archive; like the Admiralty search involving two vessels and ‘a new invented Diving engine’ after the warship Royal Anne Galley was lost in 1721 off Lizard Point, ‘her upper Teer (of guns) being all brass’. The site of the Royal Anne, the district’s most deadly wreck with over 200 victims, is now another of the Lizard’s Protected Wrecks.
John Bray, an agent acting for owners or insurers, noted salvaging of ships’ bolts in his memoir of wrecks around Bude 1759-1830. Stratton carpenter John Balsdon worked all day freeing fine copper bolts, like this one, from a wreck at Morwenstow, only to be relieved of them by rival agent Shearm and walk 6 miles home empty-handed. At an earlier wreck at Wanson, Bray and a partner saved iron bolts, but two tons of them were stolen; a great loss as iron was then worth 2d a pound.
While hope of goods or compensation drew local people to salvage from wrecks, they strove also to save lives from the sea, often risking their own. At Gunwalloe a gravestone records that Joseph Dale aged 22 died saving life in 1808, at the wreck of a German ship at Loe Bar. The previous year Joseph was among locals attempting to reach people from the wreck of HMS Anson, and helpers drowned also at that tragedy, sparking the invention of rescue apparatus by Henry Trengrouse.
An original notebook where Henry Trengrouse compiled evidence of the need for special life-saving equipment, and descriptions of his inventions for making it, is preserved in the Cornish archives at Kresen Kernow, Redruth.
The Anson wrecked on the shore of Gunwalloe parish was one of half a dozen ‘H.M. Ships’ tragedies Trengrouse referred to, where hundreds of lives were lost ‘through the want of a rope communication’. To get a rope aboard he proposed that a rocket bearing a line could be fired, using a gun; ‘….A Rocket possesses these three great essentials, simplicity, portability, and power. It has the peculiar and valuable property of power within itself, ─ and operates in any sort of weather.’
Trengrouse noted that lines could be stored ready on a pin in a box; an idea subsequently developed to produce the systematic stowage seen here, accomplished by using a ‘former’, also one of the ‘Wreck and Rescue’ models.
A former like this, for methodical stowage and smooth release of safety line, was invented in the early 20th century by William Schermuly of London, a rope splicer (Imperial War Museums website, Lives of the First World War). The invention was officially adopted, as part of the development of the life-saving apparatus to which Henry Trengrouse contributed after witnessing the fatal wrecks of HMS Anson and James and Rebecca a century or so before.
An illustrated Ministry guide to its use, at the museum in Helston, shows how a line was stowed in the former, placed on a wooden base. It was wound from pin to pin across the former in one direction, one layer at a time. The layer was patted flat and the former was turned before the next layer was wound in at right angles.
Henry Trengrouse also set out in his account of his inventions the concept for this swing-like seat, to convey survivors to shore from stricken ships once a communicating rope was in place (original notebook at Kresen Kernow, Redruth);
‘Safety Chaise, to be suspended to the travellers [‘small wheels…running upon ropes’], for conveying persons (above the water,) to land from a stranded vessel; its construction is equally cheap as simple, - it folds up in a small space: in use, it is safe and easy, and indeed is a comfortable conveyance….’
Trengrouse observed that at the wreck of the James and Rebecca, ‘every one of those unfortunate creatures might have been landed by the use of only one safety chaise, long before the vessel went to pieces; as well as thousands of Dollars, and other valuable property which was lost.’
Further life-saving gear was developed through the work of Henry Trengrouse and of George Manby of Norfolk. The breeches buoy combined a buoyant ring with weight-bearing breeches, so survivors could withstand the waves and be hauled to shore suspended from communicating ropes.
This gear continued in use in the 20th century, for example in 1912 at the wreck of the Welsh steam collier City of Cardiff. Driven back from Land’s End in a gale, the ship anchored at Nanjizal but was swept onto the rocks; parts of the wreckage can still be seen there.
Using the breeches buoy, coastguards rescued Mrs Storey and Mrs Bethke, wives of the captain and chief officer; chief engineer Meek, with two-year-old Fritz Bethke bound to him; and then the rest of the crew and finally the captain as the ship broke up (Larn and Carter, 1969 ─ see the Wrecks page for sources used). The rescue was captured in images by Gibsons photographers of Penzance, now at the Royal Museums Greenwich.
Henry Trengrouse noted the benefits of a cork jacket like this in his book of lifesaving inventions: ‘The Sailors Life Spencer, is portable & convenient for stowage; its construction is simple, cheap, and durable; its application is suitable for persons of various sizes; and it may be put on and taken off as readily as a waistcoat; it admits of the free use of the limbs in wading or swimming, affords protection from blows against rocks, or floating pieces of wreck……it will float a man breast high above the surface….’ (Original notebook at Kresen Kernow, Redruth).
As recorded by Robert Morton Nance, joint founder of the Old Cornwall Societies, cork was also traditionally used in Cornwall for fishing net floats. These floats in turn could be carved to make childrens’ model ships, or ‘carken bobbers’ ─ miniature cork luggers fitted with slate keels below and wood-chip sails.
Pilot gigs are seagoing rowing boats, generally 6-oared and 32 feet long, some fitted for a sail. They were designed to speed pilots out to ships; they’re now used for racing as a sport, on the Isles of Scilly, around the coast of Cornwall, and beyond. Gigs were used in the past for other work too, most importantly shipwreck rescue; and Henry Trengrouse’s rescue apparatus could be carried in them, fitted in chests.
This model boat has fewer oars but has the broad beam of some older gigs, enhancing stability in heavy seas. Historic 6-oared gigs preserved in use today include boats whose crews rescued survivors from wrecks on Scilly. The 1830 gig Slippen saved lives from the wreck of a great schooner, TW Lawson, in 1907.
The wooden model, made by Mr W. Richards of Redruth, won a first prize at the 1901 Edinburgh Industrial Exhibition (information at Museum of Cornish Life).
The purpose-built motor lifeboat Duke of York, reproduced in this detailed model, was stationed at the Lizard from 1934 to 1961. She was ‘Watson’ class, 41 feet long and over 11 feet wide, and could carry 70 people even in rough seas (information at the Museum of Cornish Life).
Cornwall’s first dedicated lifeboat was established around 1803 at Mount’s Bay (by Lloyd’s insurers of London). The Lizard station was founded later, after the fatal wreck of the steamer Czar in 1859. The original lifeboat there, similar to a gig, was named Anna Maria after patron Mrs Agar of Lanhydrock near Bodmin. Anna Maria’s first house was above the slipway on Lizard Point, itself made in 1691 most likely for a seine fishery. That house was replaced by the present ones further down the slip, which were used until 1961.
Wreck & Rescue at Gunwalloe: Protected Wrecks | Wreck-related remains | Shipwreck rescue | 3D models