{"id":18273,"date":"2026-06-23T10:37:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T10:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theshoebox.org.uk\/the-shoebox-experiences\/?p=18273"},"modified":"2026-06-23T10:37:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T10:37:21","slug":"the-shipwrecks-of-east-anglia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theshoebox.org.uk\/the-shoebox-experiences\/the-shipwrecks-of-east-anglia\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shipwrecks of East Anglia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
East Anglia is a region surrounded on three sides by the sea and has an extensive network of waterways throughout, including the Norfolk Broads. As a result of all of this water, and the importance throughout history of water travel and trade, it is no surprise that the area boasts a host of shipwrecks from all sorts of different time periods. Shipwrecks have, unsurprisingly, often captured the public imagination. After all, who doesn\u2019t love the idea of a historic, seldom visited, ghostly skeleton of something that, once upon a time, was full of life and importance. Whether it\u2019s the idea of possible hidden treasures, the folklore that often surrounds them, or the historical significance, people have always been interested in what lies beneath the waves. Often the stories of these vessels and the way they found themselves at the bottom of the sea are just as fascinating. So for this blog we thought we might pick out a few of these to tell you about! It must be noted though that often these wrecks aren\u2019t reachable to the general public and, those that are, are often protected or dangerous to dive to, so please don\u2019t go out searching for any that aren\u2019t already accessible or on display unless you have the right permission, training and experience to do so!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\nThe Broads and coasts of East Anglia have claimed many boats and ships over the centuries (Image courtesy of Max Darbyshire)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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The Kentish (HMS Kent) 1652-1672<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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The Kentish<\/em> (renamed later after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 to The HMS Kent<\/em>), was a 40 gun \u201cfourth rate frigate,\u201d which was constructed in Deptford and launched in 1652. The ship saw action in both of the Anglo Dutch wars in the 17th century (there were four naval wars with the Dutch in the 17th and 18th centuries).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As European powers started to grow with the occupation of the Americas and several other places around the world, trade became the main lifeblood of these new, burgeoning empires. France, Britain, Spain, The Netherlands, Belgium and others were spreading across the world, bringing untold wealth and new goods home. This resulted in trade routes being fiercely protected and debated and tensions often arose when one power saw another as encroaching on their own. Britain, in 1651, brought out The Navigation Act, which meant that all goods traded by British Colonies had to be on board British ships and come via Britain for appropriate taxation of goods. The Dutch were barred from conducting trade in British territories which led to a great deal of anger and war was to follow. Mostly fought on sea, the wars saw intense fighting across the North Sea and battles took place just off shore from East Anglia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Kentish<\/em> was built specifically for this conflict and was a medium sized vessel that was bristling with guns and ready for combat. She saw action in the Battle of Portland and the Battle of the Gabbard in 1653 and survived both. For the next two years she ended up in the Mediterranean, and famously on the 4th April 1655, she engaged a squadron of Tunisian warships and an onshore fort in Porto Farina off the Barbary Coast, and came out the other side victorious, being awarded battle honours as a result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\nEven the mightiest 17th century vessels were at the mercy of the sea (Image courtesy of Canva)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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Renamed The HMS Kent<\/em> in 1660, she then took part in the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665 that took place just under 40 miles offshore of the Suffolk town and then once more in 1666 she took part in the St James\u2019 Day Battle. She again survived both brutal battles and received distinction for the part played in both conflicts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite surviving the heat of battle, there was one thing the HMS Kent<\/em> could not contend with, however, and that was Mother Nature herself. In Oct 1672, she was travelling just off shore from Cromer during bad weather and is believed to have struck one of the many shoals or sand banks that make that area of the coast so hazardous to marine traffic and ended up disappearing beneath the dark waters of the North Sea. Since then, people have searched the area on multiple occasions trying to locate her wreck but, as of yet, her final resting place remains a mystery. In 2007, a wreck was discovered that was believed to possibly be the Kent, but the retrieval of that wreck\u2019s bell confirmed it was the HMS Gloucester<\/em> and not the Kent, meaning that somewhere off the busy Cromer beach, HMS Kent<\/em> remains hidden by the waters, waiting to be found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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HMS Gloucester 1652-1682<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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The HMS Gloucester<\/em> (mentioned above as being discovered in 2007) has started to gain a fair amount of attention in the last few years as information and artefacts were made public (with an exhibition being held in Norwich Castle in 2023). The Gloucester <\/em>(Glocester <\/em>in contemporary sources) was built in 1652, the same year as the Kentish above, as part of the expansion of the British Navy due to the Anglo Dutch wars. It was built in Limehouse in East London and named \u2018The Gloucester\u2019<\/em> after a 1643 Parliamentarian victory over royalists while defending the city of the same name. She cost \u00a35473 to build which was immensely expensive and could carry 58 cannons over two decks. The ship was designed for warfare, but would later have the distinction of being a royal vessel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1654, The Gloucester<\/em> travelled under Benjamin Blake with a fleet to the Caribbean to try and loosen the Spanish foothold on the West Indies. The endeavor was rather unsuccessful with heavy losses due to a lack of supplies and disease. Eventually they took Jamaica on May 17th but the goal of pushing out the Spanish had failed. In 1658, The Gloucester<\/em> joined a contingent of ships that travelled out toward Denmark to try and dissuade the Dutch from blocking British interests but bad weather forced the ships to return and wait nearby to Great Yarmouth. In the 1660s, she became involved in the Anglo Dutch wars, fighting in The Battle of Lowestoft, The Battle of Texel, The Four Days Battle and The St James’ Day Battle. In the 1670s she took part in the Attack of the Smyrna Fleet, The Battle of Solebay, The Battles of Schooneveld and the Second Battle of Texel. In 1678, she was refitted at great expense in Portsmouth and was given new equipment and beautiful woodwork that was said to be reminiscent of the work of Grinling Gibbons, who had worked on many stately homes including Houghton Hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the 1680s, the King of England, Charles II was dying. He had no legitimate heirs and was determined to see his brother, the Duke of York, take his place as King. The future King James II was Scottish and had Catholic leanings and so was a controversial choice with many in the Kingdom but James accepted the role. By the end of April, 1682, James was planning to sail up to Edinburgh from London to collect his pregnant wife Mary of Modena and his daughter Anne from his previous marriage before taking up residence in his brother’s palace. The HMS Gloucester <\/em>was chosen as the ship to carry the future King. James was joined on board by important courtiers and a number of other ships were to accompany them on their journey. On the 3rd May, HMS Gloucester<\/em> set sail from the Kent coast but that evening was forced to moor up due to bad weather. A cannon was fired to announce that the fleet should stop but three of the vessels misinterpreted the signal and tacked out to sea instead, becoming lost and never rejoining the fleet. <\/p>\n\n\n
\nOne of the bottles found on the wreck of the HMS Gloucester (Image courtesy of Max Darbyshire)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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The next day, conditions had worsened and, just to add more complications, the remains of the fleet were going to have to navigate the poorly mapped, and often shifting sandbanks off the coast of Gt Yarmouth. The ship’s pilot, James Ayres, the master of the ship, Benjamin Holmes, the future King James II and several other officers got into an argument on how to proceed. Ayres believed that they should hug the coastline to avoid the sandbanks while Holmes wanted to go further out to sea to do the same. The Duke of York decided to settle the matter by ordering the fleet to run up the middle of the two. A poor decision. Eventually, that evening, it was decided that the winds, although quite strong, were in a favourable direction and the fleet set off once more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Travelling at around six knots through the darkness (a speed which was too fast for vessels of that size at night time), the ships were making decent headway when disaster struck. At 5:30am, on the 6th of May, The HMS Gloucester <\/em>struck the Leman and Ower sand banks at high speed. The collision tore the rudder from the ship and ripped a hole into the hull, killing the man at the tiller. The ship was sinking quickly, but, as was protocol, no one was to leave the ship until the future King was safe. Unfortunately for the people on board, James was reluctant to abandon ship and had to be convinced to leave. Even after agreeing, he wasted more time trying to find and extract his strongbox with his memoirs and political documents inside. Eventually the crew managed to get him off the ship but by now it was too late. Less than an hour after striking the sand bank, The HMS Gloucester <\/em>was dragged beneath the freezing sea, taking 130 to 250 of the estimated 330 passengers, including important noblemen like Robert Ker, Earl of Roxburghe, and the Duke of York\u2019s own brother in law James Hyde, down to the bottom with her. The future King blamed the pilot James Ayres for the disaster and ordered him hanged but thankfully James was only incarcerated for a year before being released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under deep waters, 28 miles from Great Yarmouth and being slowly swallowed by the sands, The HMS Gloucester<\/em> sat for centuries until, in 2007, brothers Julian and Lincoln Barnwell happened upon one of its cannons. The two had been searching for the ship for four years and the incredible discovery led to great excitement. Over the next several years, they worked on studying the wreck and recovering artefacts from it. No human remains were found, only animal bones, but amazing things were recovered in the twisted timbers including personal items such as a pair of spectacles in their case, clothes, shoes, navigational equipment and unopened wine bottles. One of the bottles bears a glass coat of arms for the Legge family, the ancestors of George Washington, the first American president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2012 the bell of the ship was brought to the surface and, once examined, confirmed that the ship was The HMS Gloucester.<\/em> In June 2022, the discovery of the ship could finally be revealed to the public after being kept secret to protect the site. Its location is still a closely guarded secret but, following the announcement, the discoveries made at the site have been made available for the public, coming to Norwich Castle Museum in 2023. The discovery has been hailed as the most important since the raising of the Mary Rose<\/em> in 1982 and, although the timbers of the ship itself remain at the bottom of the sea, its artefacts have helped to tell the story of a magnificently important vessel, and its fate on that sand bank more than three centuries ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\nThe recovered bell from the wreck of the HMS Gloucester (Image of courtesy of Max Darbyshire)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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SS Fernebo 1912-1917<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Half a mile from Cromer pier, sitting just below the waterline and visible when tides are low and sands worn away by a storm, are the rusted remains of the Swedish SS Fernebo<\/em> that met its untimely end in Norfolk\u2019s waters. Rarely seen and with few locals aware of its existence, the ship sits as an almost forgotten reminder of the human cost of WWI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The SS Fernebo <\/em>was built in 1912 in the Oskarshamn Shipyard in Sweden as a 70 metre long cargo vessel, designed to carry heavy loads over distance. During the First World War, Sweden was neutral but would often transport goods to other countries whether they were members of the allies to Britain or the Germans. These included iron ore, timber and grain, of which there was a shortage in Sweden following the collapse of trade routes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On January 9th 1917, the Fernebo <\/em>travelled from G\u00e4vle in Sweden towards London with a large shipment of timber. She had made her way across the North Sea with little incident but as she approached just off the end of Cromer pier, something went very wrong. An explosion split the air with dramatic force. The cause is debated, with some arguing that it was a boiler explosion, but it is now fairly accepted that the explosion was caused by the hull striking a German sea mine, of which there were many, scattered around East Anglia\u2019s coastline. The force of the blast instantly killed the ship’s chief engineer, Johan Adolf Anderson, and ripped the vessel in two. It did not help the fact that the weather was terrible, with high waves and 50mph gales of wind. Six crew members were seen clinging to one half of the ship as it drifted toward shore. Thankfully the Cromer locals had heard and seen the dramatic events unfolding and rushed to the beach. Forming a human chain, they braved the horrific conditions to swim out to the men and safely bring them to shore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eleven other crew members were on the other half of the ship which was floating out to sea and, even worse, was filling with water. Luckily, a local hero was nearby to help, famed lifeboatman Henry Blogg. Often referred to as \u201cthe greatest lifeboatmen to ever live\u201d, Blogg had a career that spanned 53 years and is accredited with saving 873 people by the end of his time with the RNLI, the lifeboat museum in Cromer is named after him and he still stands as the most decorated lifeboatmen in British history. At the time of the disaster that destroyed the Fernebo <\/em>The Cromer Lifeboat, the Louisa Heartwell, <\/em>had been out at sea helping a Greek vessel that had run into trouble and had just returned to the lifeboat station. Hearing news of what had happened, Henry Blogg gathered his crew and they took off once more toward the 11 men clinging to the sinking wreckage. The lifeboat at the time was powered by the crew rowing against the bitter weather and howling winds and must have been utterly exhausting but, thankfully, this was something the crew had trained for on multiple occasions and, with expert manoeuvering and skill, they were able to save all 11 of the remaining crew members and bring them safely back to shore. Johan Anderson\u2019s body washed up on Mundesley beach a couple of days later, where he is now buried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\nCromer has seen many wrecks over the years and is known to have several wrecks nearby (Image courtesy of Max Darbyshire)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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The section of the ship that had contained the six men saved by the locals was a 20m stretch and it sank beneath the waves on the shoreline. There, over several years, it broke apart and was buried under the sands and water. It lay there, pretty much forgotten, until in 2018, bad weather caused large amounts of sand to shift and its rusting skeleton appeared on the beach. It appeared again in 2020 and thankfully archaeologists were able to get to it to make observations and recordings before it slipped back under the sand and sea. With storms becoming a more common occurrence due to climate change, it\u2019s likely the ship will resurface once more soon, but every time it does, the waves chip away at it a little more, and one day, The SS Fernebo <\/em>will be gone forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The Sheraton 1907-1947<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Nestled in the sands on St Edmund’s Point in Old Hunstanton sits the barnacle encrusted hull of wood and metal that once formed part of the steam trawler The Sheraton, <\/em>a once fishing vessel that went on to serve proudly in both world wars. Built in 1907 by Cook, Welton and Gemmel in Beverly, Yorkshire, for fishing the often hostile North Sea, The Sheraton <\/em>was completed at a time when the British public were increasingly worried by the expanding military power of a recently unified Germany. She spent the first few years going out from her home port in Grimsby on regular fishing runs but when war was declared in 1914, she was requisitioned by the Royal Navy. She then spent the majority of the war patrolling anti-submarine booms, large nets across harbours that were meant to block and entangle any hidden German submarines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the end of the First World War, The Sheraton <\/em>returned to her fishing duties in Grimsby until, in 1942, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, she was once again acquired by the Royal Navy to serve in the Nore Command and this time fitted with a six pound gun to take up patrol duties around the east coast of Britain, watching for Nazi warships or U-Boats. From afar the ship appeared to be a torpedo boat, something the Nazi\u2019s greatly feared as these small boats were very maneuverable and could whip across the sea under the great guns of much larger vessels and deliver a torpedo to rip a large hole in the hull. She also had an adjustable hull to avoid detection at night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soon after the end of the Second World War, she was stripped of all of her valuable components and given to the Royal Air Force who painted her a bright daffodil yellow and moored her off Brest Sand in the wash to be used as a target ship. Bomber pilots would practice dropping bombs or taking runs at her with machine guns in order to sharpen their skills for any future conflicts. On the night of the 23rd April 1947, there were severe gales across the coast of the East of England and the rough seas uprooted The Sheraton <\/em>from her moorings and she floated quietly across The Wash, only to come to rest beneath the cliffs, just under the lighthouse, in Hunstanton. The EDP at the time reported that attempts were going to be made to refloat her so that she could return to being used as a target vessel, but these attempts failed and she remained in place. A firm of King\u2019s Lynn scrap merchants then purchased the ship and, on the beach where she had come to rest, stripped her right down to the hull line and left the rest to the sea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, The Sheraton <\/em>still sits in place, where she has rested for the last 80 years or so, being slowly claimed by the sea. With every storm that hits the Norfolk coast, more of the vessel is worn away and soon, she will be gone all together. So if you wish to view this once proud ship, its best to be done sooner rather than later before this reminder of a once booming fishing industry and wartime defensive vessel is lost to memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The Sunken Wherries of The Norfolk Broads<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Nothing epitomises Norfolk like the wherry boat. The flat bottomed, wide vessels capped with beautiful, large black sails. Indeed, when I attended Broadland High School in the early 2000s, our school logo was a wherry. Sadly, only eight of the original wherries remain on our beloved Broads, but there was once a time where Norfolk was home to hundreds of them. As better technologies came about in the 19th century and trains and motorboats became more widespread, the wherry fell out of use and many of them were dismantled and their pieces taken to use for other purposes. Some, however, were sunk into the water or used to shore up river banks or even being used later on during the Second World War to try and stop German spies. As a result, you can occasionally come across their ghostly wrecks dotted around the Norfolk wetlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The wherry first came about in the 17th century to help with transporting goods and people around the extensive river networks and broads in East Anglia. Being tidal and surrounded by sometimes dense vegetation, the nature of the broads is ever changing and navigation could be difficult. They also expanded over a wide area meaning that, if a person wanted to travel from one point to another with a broad in the area, they would be forced to go around which would mean a dramatically longer trip and regular river vessels struggled with the sometimes narrow waterways and sometimes wide open, shallow broads. With flat bottoms, retractable keels, a mast attached to the far front of the vessel and a gaff rig (four pointed sail) the wherries were perfect for navigating the unusual landscape of these East Anglian waters. Like Viking longships long before them, wherries also had an ability to quickly lower the mast to get under a bridge, using the momentum of the boat to glide under, and then quickly raise it on the other side to keep moving. <\/p>\n\n\n
\nNavigating the many bridges and narrow waterways around Norwich and East Anglia was important for trade (Image courtesy of Max Darbyshire)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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Initially the wherries were designed to help with trade, dubbed \u201ctrading wherries\u201d, they were designed to move out to sea at Great Yarmouth to greet the large trading vessels that struggled to get close to shore. They would take the goods and pick their way back through the estuaries and inland towards the city of Norwich or other trading ports. They were designed with a black hull with a white nose to help with visibility after dark and often had a \u201cclinker\u201d design in which the wooden boards that make up the hull overlap to help with keeping water out. The sails were often blackened by tar and fish oil to help stop weathering and each wherry had a decorative topper at the top of the mast to help distinguish the vessel’s owner. When rail lines were laid through the region, they took on most of the trade transport and the wherry owners were forced to adapt. Outside of taking the few trade jobs they could get, they would routinely fit the hold of the boat with hammocks and a stove so that they could take on tourists and passengers and get them around the broads. For the rich, however, being seen on a working wherry was not \u201cin keeping with their image\u201d so special \u201cwherry yachts\u201d were developed which were sleeker with a white hull and large seating areas at the stern of the vessel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually, all wherries were overtaken by new steam or motorised vehicles and their use declined. As wherry yards went out of business, the boats were sold off cheaply and scrapped or sunk into embankments along the rivers to shore them up. Some remains of these can be seen near Salhouse and Oulton broads at low tide. During the Second World War, it was feared that East Anglia could be the point at which the Nazis might launch an invasion and the worry that Nazi spies might be able to slip in by landing marine gliders on the open water of the broads led to the MoD commissioning several wherries to be taken out and overturned in the water, linked by reels of barbed wire to tangle up any aircraft attempting to land. Today, those upturned wherries have gathered silt and have trees growing on them and have become important sites for local wildlife, being used by otters and common terns. Some of these can still be spotted, but usually only by those with a keen eye, as they are often cut off from the public with chains, such as at Surlingham Broad where a wherry graveyard of 13 sunken wherries still poke above water at low tide. The worry was also that the broads could not be observed via a road so patrols of the home guard had to borrow boats to sweep around every few hours to check for Nazi infiltrators. Some of those boats used were the wherries, silent and effective at going unnoticed if need be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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