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Discovery and Survey and of a 17th–18th Century Shipwreck
near Drumbeg, NW Scotland: an initial report
I
n December 2011 a possible wreck-site was
reported to Historic Scotland at a location on the
sea-bed c.500 m from Drumbeg, a small village on
the southern shore of Eddrachillis Bay on the west coast
of Sutherland (Fig. 1). The wreck had been discovered
in 1994 by one of the authors (EM). Subsequent survey
by Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by Historic
Scotland. The site consists of two anchors, and three
cannon in close proximity overlying a well-preserved
section of hull, in mobile sediments at a depth of
9–12 m. The Scottish government designated the site in
2013 as Scotland’s first Historic Marine Protected Area
under the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010. Further research
by the discoverers of the site and Wessex Archaeology
has been funded by Historic Scotland and is currently
underway.
Discovery
In 1994, Ewen Mackay found a large anchor on the
sea-bed while diving for scallops near his home. The
main part of the wreck-site was later discovered nearby
by Michael Errington, a friend of Mackay and both
divers visited the site together in 1999.
Initially Mackay and Errington wished to identify
the wreck before making the discovery public. Between
1999 and 2011 they undertook sporadic investigations
of the site, including searches of the wider area, metal
detection around the cannon and small-scale excava-
tion and recovery of a small number of artefacts,
including round shot and a deadeye. The divers were
unable to discover much more about the wreck, partly
because the level of mobile sediment often increased.
An anchor found lying a short distance to the NW of
two of the cannon was moved during this period to a
location on the sea-bed at c.200 m distance in order to
facilitate the metal-detecting survey.
In December 2011 the divers decided they could not
progress the investigations further without professional
assistance. Mackay made contact through a local histo-
rian with Historic Scotland, the executive agency of the
Scottish Government charged with safeguarding Scot-
land’s historic environment. Historic Scotland then
commissioned Wessex Archaeology to survey the site.
The Wessex team were to undertake a visual inspection
and photographic survey of the wreckage in order to
enable Historic Scotland to assess the significance of the
site, in liaison with the divers who had discovered and
reported it. This was carried out in September 2012
from the local dive charter vessel Nimrod. Further tasks
were carried out including shallow test pitting and
recovery of a small number of diagnostic artefacts. A
technical report (McCarthy, 2012) describing the initial
results of the survey is available online, and is summa-
rized and updated here. In addition to carrying out a
measured survey, the excellent levels of visibility expe-
rienced facilitated experimental use of multi-image pho-
togrammetric techniques. The resulting 3D-survey data
was used to generate plans of the site as well as fly-
through videos and digital reconstructions (McCarthy
and Benjamin, 2014).
The Drumbeg wreck-site
The Drumbeg wreck-site lies on a gradually sloping
sandy sea-bed on the northern side of a narrow channel
‘Dornaidh an Fheoir’ between the shore of the main-
land parish of Assynt and a cluster of small unoccupied
NAUTICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 44.1
202 © 2015 Historic Scotland. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology © 2015 The Nautical Archaeology Society