Dig, Dive and Discover - the Story

The 2006 “Dig, Dive and Discover” Project, funded through the Heritage Lottery’s ‘Young Roots’ scheme, provided fourteen young Hartlepool Sea Cadets with a range of new skills  enabling them to undertake an archaeological excavation and survey  of a small wooden shipwreck on Hartlepool’s  Middleton beach.

Scuba-diver training was provided by Hartlepool Diving Club at the local swimming baths. Hartlepool Library staff ran sessions in documentary and IT maritime research, while Staff and volunteers from Tees Archaeology and the Nautical Archaeology Society North-East provided archaeological training.

The Cadets began their 5-day excavation and survey on August the 23^rd, 2006, their first step of course, being to locate the wreck. Fortunately it was easy to find as sand loss from the beach a few weeks earlier had exposed the tops of the vessel’s frames, or ribs, and these were now clearly visible covered in a thin layer of green seaweed.

Having located the wreck, it was time to dig. However, excavating foreshore, or inter-tidal sites like this one, is often very difficult, as even at low water, the sand is usually so wet that it repeatedly collapses back into the trench, which itself almost immediately fills with water. To help keep the main excavation trench free of this water a number of drainage channels had to be dug and kept clear  and this proved to be a full-time task.

To prevent the sea back-filling the excavation with beach material after each high tide, sand bags had to be filled and carefully placed in the trench at the end of each day’s digging. Although shovelling wet sand and bailing seawater was a seemingly never-ending task, the Cadets steadily uncovered more and more of the wreck, giving them the opportunity to measure, photograph and record the remains.

This photograph is taken from the inside of the wreck looking out. The upright timbers are the vessel’s frames, or ribs and each has been given a unique identification number and tagged with a waterproof label. The horizontal timbers behind the frames are the vessel’s outer hull planks. These are fastened to the frames with wooden pegs known as trennels, literally treenails – one of the holes which once held a trennel can be seen just above the P40 tag.

As well as taking detailed measurements and photographs of the vessel’s structure, the Cadets also videoed the excavation, creating a permanent record of the survey. At the end of the dig, the Cadets back-filled the site and the beach was soon smoothed over by the sea, leaving very little to show for 5 days hard digging. But that wasn’t quite the end. A celebration event was held for everyone involved in the ‘Dig, Dive and Discover’ project, with the Sea Cadets [P8210075] attending in full dress uniform, and a good time was had by all.

There is a postscript to this story. It turned out that the Sea Cadets were a little unlucky with the timing of their excavation. In March 2009, massive sand loss from the beach revealed almost the whole extent of the wreck, still with the identification tags in place – and all without any digging!

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