- Peter Shuttleworth
- BBC News
January 26, 2023
Credit, Newport Museums and Heritage Service
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The medieval Newport Ship is one of Wales’ greatest historic discoveries
With nearly 2,500 pieces, 30 meters in length and 25 tons in weight, it’s been dubbed “the world’s largest 3D puzzle”.
After 20 years of painstaking restoration, archaeologists can now begin to reassemble the deck of a 15thcentury ship found on the banks of a river in South Wales.
Experts say the medieval ship is as important a find as the battleship Mary Rose found in the Solent Strait in southern England and predates it by a century.
“The ship has global interest and importance,” said British historian and TV presenter Dan Snow.
Experts have been working on the Newport Ship Conservation Project since the discovery in 2002 of nearly a third of the former ship used for wine trading. It included 1,000 medieval artefacts on the banks of the River Usk, near the Welsh town of Newport.
On January 19, the restorers achieved a great feat. All of the woodwork, preserved for over 550 years, is being dried and restored to be displayed.
The multimilliondollar project team is now planning the largestever attempt to reassemble an archaeological ship.
“We have a huge disassembled ship that we need to put back together and we don’t have the instructions,” says project curator Toby Jones. “There will be a lot of work to assemble, test, disassemble and reassemble.”
“There are archaeological ships on display all over the world, but none from the 15th century. That’s what makes it so special and meaningful. We have a medieval ship that is absolutely unique,” explains Jones.
The military ship Mary Rose sailed under the flag of King Henry VIII of the Tudor dynasty. Today it is perhaps the most famous 16thcentury ship on display. The Swedish ship Vasa is its 17thcentury equivalent.
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The ship was found in 2002 during the construction of a new theater in Newport.
Now historians claim that the Newport ship will be the only 15thcentury maritime object on display anywhere in the world.
“The Mary Rose has always been the most important since it was found and raised in 1982, as many people remember. Now the Newport Vessel has reached the same level,” says David Pearson, Director of Conservation at Mary Rose.
For Pearson, “It can provide a lot of information about what life was like in the mid14th century and we can learn about shipbuilding in the late Middle Ages and from objects found on board.”
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Beams of the Newport ship being removed from the freeze drying machine at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth, England
Around £8million has already been spent preserving and restoring the beams, including freeze drying the wood at the Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth on the south coast of England.
On January 19, the team made their final visit to the museum to pick up the final batch of about 100 beams and bring them back to Newport. For the first time in years, all providers were under one roof.
Historians now hope to put the wreck back together and put it on display within the next five years.
“It’s like a time capsule”
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Historian and TV presenter Dan Snow believes the Newport ship provides the answer to many questions about European history.
“The Newport ship tells us a lot of things that the Mary Rose can’t,” says Dan Snow.
“The Mary Rose was a Tudor ship and looks like one of the first modern ships. The Newport ship is a merchant ship that was used at the start of a shipbuilding revolution in Europe,” said Snow.
“It was a time when those who lived on the Atlantic coast the Welsh, people from Brittany, northern Spain, Portugal, Devon and Cornwall [na Inglaterra] began to put to sea in larger and more powerful ships that would one day enable them to cross the Atlantic and Indian Oceans,” the historian continues.
“As such, the Newport ship symbolizes the birth of this era of European exploration and reaches a very important moment in naval history just a generation before Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic.”
“It’s the birth of an era that changed the world in every way imaginable,” explains Snow. “People talk about globalization and international trade as if it were something new, but this ship shows that in our medieval past we had strong ties to Europe, trading and drinking French wines.”
For Snow, “The Newport ship is one of the most important and interesting wrecks to be found in British waters in a generation. It is a truly international find; the wood comes from northern Spain and the wine from France.”
“It’s like a time capsule, a piece of the 15th century offered to us here in the 21st century. It is something that will have global importance and interest. Tourists will come from all over the world because it is so well preserved,” he concludes.
Why Newport?
The midsize ship, 30 meters long and weighing 400 tons, is believed to have been refueled after a voyage from the Iberian Peninsula to neighboring Bristol, England.
The supply took place in 1468 or 1469 at a quay on the Usk River when the anchorage collapsed.
Much of the oak and iron planks were removed before the flood hid what was left of the ship, and a third of the ship was preserved in its mud tomb and remained untouched for more than five centuries.
Economic impact assessments assume that the preserved ship could attract up to 150,000 visitors a year. This would make the ship one of the most popular tourist attractions in Wales. This would add £7 million (about R$44 million) a year to the South Wales economy.
Credit, Newport Museums and Heritage Service
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The ship’s 2,500 planks from Newport were waxed for four years as part of the restoration process.
Archaeologists plan to allow the public to watch the remains being assembled once a building large enough to house the ship is identified.
“You can’t build that and then move it,” Jones explains. “You can only build it in its final position, but when it’s finished it will be stable and have the potential to be on permanent display.”
The Newport Council, which led the conservation work, will soon begin a feasibility study to determine the best site for housing the ship. An empty department store is one possibility.
“We are very keen to find a home that maximizes access for all people as we wish to share this great treasure,” said Jane Mudd, Newport Council Chair. “The potential economic benefits are also important more than 1,000 people are attending the Newport Ship discussions, indicating interest is huge.”