Identification

Title

HMS Colossus Wrecking Project 2017

Abstract

In December 1798 HMS Colossus, a 74 gun warship built in 1787 at Gravesend, was on her way home to England with wounded from the Battle of the Nile and with cargo, including part of Sir William Hamilton’s second collection of Greek pottery. She was sheltering from a gale in St Mary’s Roads, Isles of Scilly, when the anchor cable parted and she was driven aground to the south of Samson. All but one member of the crew were taken off safely before Colossus turned onto her beam ends and proceeded to break up. To date, two main areas of wreckage have been identified, the bow site and the stern site. In 1975 part of the wreck (probably the bow) was designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act. This designation was revoked in 1984. The current site, the stern, was designated in 2001. Fieldwork was undertaken by the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Maritime Archaeology Society (CISMAS) for two weeks in May 2017. Large areas of the seabed around the stern site were searched in detail in order to better understand the events leading to the present disposition of wreck material on the seabed. This was mainly prompted by the proposal of a new wrecking theory by CISMAS in 2015. This project revisits the loss of the ship, the historic salvage of the wreck and the rediscovery of the site and subsequent excavation by Roland Morris in the 1970s. The evolution of our understanding of how and where Colossus was wrecked is examined in some detail. This is followed by an explanation of the new wrecking theory - and how the results of this year’s survey accord with it.

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

https://doi.org/10.5284/1050094

description: A link to the web service or dataset

https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/

description: A link to the general host site

Unique resource identifier

code

COLL_ID_1003128

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::27700

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

structure

environment

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Keyword set

keyword value

Keyword set

keyword value

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2008-01-06

Keyword set

keyword value

originating controlled vocabulary

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2009-11-16

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

-6.3491

East bounding longitude

-6.3377

North bounding latitude

49.9276

South bounding latitude

49.9202

Extent

Extent group

authority code

title

reference date

date type

revision

effective date

2010-01-01

code identifying the extent

inapplicable

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

2018-03-01

End position

2018-04-30

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2018-11-20

Frequency of update

notPlanned

Quality and validity

Lineage

This dataset was collected by Kevin Kamidge and provided to the Archaeology Data Service for long term archive and management.

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/advice/termsOfUseAndAccess

Constraint set

Limitations on public access

https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/advice/termsOfUseAndAccess

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

organisation name

Historic England

email address

dassh.enquiries@mba.ac.uk

responsible party role

originator

Responsible party

organisation name

Archaeology Data Service

email address

help@archaeologydataservice.ac.uk

responsible party role

custodian

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

organisation name

Archaeology Data Service

email address

help@archaeologydataservice.ac.uk

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2022-07-22

Metadata language