HMS Northumberland (1679)

HMS Northumberland was a 70-gun third-rate ship of the line of the English Royal Navy, launched at Bristol in 1679.

Service
She fought in the War of the Grand Alliance.

In 1702, she was rebuilt at Chatham Dockyard, though she was lost with all hands on the Goodwin Sands in the Great Storm of the following year. Captain Greenway was among the 220 men (including 24 marines) who drowned.

Wreck
The remains of the Northumberland lie south of three wrecks of other ships lost in the same storm - the Stirling Castle, Restoration and Mary. The Northumberland and Mary (the latter misidentified as the Restoration) were found by recreational divers in 1980. The site was designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 the following year. The current designation is under Statutory Instrument 2004/2395, of a 300 m radius around 51° 15.4802’ N 01° 30.0161’ E.

The Archaeological Diving Unit (ADU) conducted a number of dives on the site over the next three decades and since 1999 technology has been applied in the form of magnetometer and side-scan sonar surveys. The wreck was originally identified by the discovery of a bell and stock with the naval broad arrow and date; subsequently the ADU have found guns, two copper cauldrons and an anchor. The site consists of a large mound approximately 40 m long by 20 m wide, lying NW/SE near Fork Spit on the western edge of the Goodwin Sands. Parts are 3 m above the surrounding seabed, but much of the structure is thought to be buried below the sand. A dense turf of juvenile mussels covers most features, making it hard to identify them. There is a coherent piece of ship's structure just south of the centre of the designated area, with large timbers and some exposed planking, possibly corresponding to the region between the first and second futtocks (ribs) of the vessel.