June 2016 - The Mary Rose
Members of the Horndean & District U3A met for their regular monthly meeting on Friday 3rd June at Merchistoun Hall. They were given an insight into the history of the Mary Rose by Trevor Sapey (suitably attired in clothes depicting the period) and the latest information regarding the recent upgrade to the remains of the ship and viewing platform and "how she has come back home!"
Trevor took us back to good old HENRY VIII and the year 1509 when he inherited just 5 ships and his building programme taking him to 57 ships and bankrupting the country! They even melted down church bells to make the canons. Mary Rose was the first warship ever built and was Henry's flagship but only went on short journeys. She was at sea for 34 years and she had two refits in 1510 & 1530. She was about two thirds of the size of the Victory with a compliment of men of approximately 415 and 500 officers. On the day she sunk it is believed that there could have been about 700 on board as she was going into battle.
Trevor asked us why we thought the Mary Rose had sunk at the battle of the Solent. Was it the gun ports were too low and open, or the new canons too heavy or was she holed in battle? Or was it because the Spanish mercenaries didn't understand English. She took just 20 minutes to go down. The truth is, no one actually knows why it sunk!
She was abandoned and left to rot because at that time it was impossible to raise her. She became covered in mud which preserved the timbers you see today in the museum and the thousands of artefacts which were uncovered. In the 1830's the Dean brothers (salvagers) from Gosport were asked by local fishermen to clear an obstruction on the sea bed because they were snagging their nets. They even used explosives and took off some of the heavy guns but the majority of the ship was still buried.
Moving forward to 1971 when Alex McKee found the ship and identified it, it then took a further 11 years to recover the ship. He sold his house to pay for diving on the wreck and Margaret Rule joined him. It took eight painstaking years to properly reveal the ship. They set up a trust, of which Prince Charles is president, to raise the considerable amount of money needed and to raise awareness of the project in the press etc. It was the largest underwater wreck project ever taken on and extremely costly.
Visibility around the wreck was only about 18 inches to 10 feet. It was painstaking but everything was recorded. The MOD gave the Trust No 3 dock and on 11th October 1982 she was lifted out of the water. From then her (all oak) hull was sprayed with water, changing to wax in 1994.
There have been 19,000 different artefacts superbly preserved by the mud. They have found stone shot, 2400 arrows, 34 gold coins, shoes, clothes, longbows, skulls, dog skeleton, tools, chests and much much more. They found 139 good long bows - previously there were only 2 in the world - with a total collection of 172. The chests found and their contents showed who they were and their occupations. From the skulls forensics have built up faces which are on show in the museum. They have found 10k bones! There were only 30-35 survivors.
Trevor kindly passed around lots of artefacts which were fascinating and caused much discussion. Currently the museum is undergoing a massif change. The scaffolding and warm air pipes have all been removed and the viewing walls have been replaced with 'all glass'. The anniversary of the sinking is 19th July and it is planned that the re-opening will on 20th July. We are all looking forward to making a visit in the near future.
Diane Stoner, Speaker Co-ordinator.