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Meeting Report of the Ipswich and District Historical Transport Society on February 25th 2026.

A total of 65 members and visitors attended our opening monthly meeting of 2026.

The subject of the talk at this meeting was “Shipwrecks around Our Coast”, presented by Andy Beharrell.

Lots of research has been done on the wrecks around our coast. One of the most interesting and the earliest found in Northern Europe was the so-called Blackfriars Ship. It was one of several discovered near Blackfriars Bridge in the Thames mud in 1962. It dates back to 150AD and is a Roman ship.

“I will let that sink in,” says Andy – tongue in cheek.

It was one of four ships transporting and, indeed, overloaded with Kentish ragstone. It is believed to have collided with another vessel before sinking. It is interesting because of the artefacts found including pottery, a wooden mallet and a coin. The latter was found under the mast on the mast step. It carried the image of the Roman Emperor; Domitian and dated from 88-89AD. It may have been the coin representing payment to Charon, the fabled ferryman on the River Styx crossing.

We move forward 1,500 years to the 1650’s and the time of the Anglo-Dutch Wars. The London was a 76-gun navy ship built at Chatham in 1656. She was in the convoy that bought Charles II back to England from Holland.

The London blew up off the Essex coast near Southend-on-Sea. The sad part of the story is that some families of the crew were on board the ship at the time and as a result; 300 men, women and children were killed by the explosion.

An astonishing array of well-preserved finds have been retrieved from the wreck in recent years. These include a gun carriage and leather shoes in superb condition. One fascinating find is a Dutch gun, obviously captured from one of their ships. It has beautifully crafted carvings adorning its barrel.

The next wreck was found nearer home and is the Royal James, which was one of many ships involved in the Battle of Sole Bay near Southwold in Suffolk, fought on June 6th, 1672. It was a significant naval engagement during the Third Anglo-Dutch War, involving a Dutch fleet under Michiel de Ruyter and a combined Anglo-French force.

In the battle, the Dutch launched a fire ship against our fleet and the Royal James was set aflame. Her captain: Richard Haddock by name, jumped ship and survived the carnage. He was later promoted to admiral, and his name is thought to have been used by Herge in the Tintin stories.

As another interesting aside: taking pride of place on the front exterior of the Martlesham Red Lion inn is the famous wooden lion figurehead, which is said to have been taken from a Dutch ship captured at the battle.

The Gloucester was a 50-gun ship built in Limehouse in 1653. She was wrecked off Yarmouth on the 6 May 1682 and was carrying the Duke of York (later James II of England) to Leith. Through the negligence of the pilot, the ship foundered on the Lemon and Oar shoal off Yarmouth. The Duke escaped with several other notables, including John Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marlborough, but about 130 people perished in the incident. The wreck was found in 2007 by divers who had been searching for it for several years.

We jump forward now to 1904 when the sailing barge Memory was built to carry fertiliser for Fisons working round the coast from London to Ipswich. She was last sailed in 1959.

It is amazing that in her day she was worked by two people: a man and a boy. She was finally owned by the Fellowship Afloat Charitable Trust and was eventually moved to Tollesbury marshes where she was badly damaged by fire.

Andy ended by taking questions from the audience and received thanks from our Chairman and warm applause for an enlightening talk from an engaging speaker.

Mervyn Russen

Andy Beharrell

A model of the Roman ship “Blackfriars” (Attribution:  Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic licenseGeneric license)

The Burning of the Royal James at the Battle of Sole Bay – painted by Willem de Velde the Younger (Attribution: Creative Commons Attribution – Share Alike 4.0 International license)

Wreck of the Gloucester off Yarmouth 1682 – painted by Johan Danckerts (Attribution: In the public domain)