16th March 2015
by Richard Booth
Over 70 past, present Tyneside members and other guests attended the Gun Rocks presentation evening at the Ravensworth Arms.
Indeed a number of attendee’s had travelled considerable distances for the event with Nic and Linda Ashmore driving up from Weymouth and Andy Hunt from the Isle of Wight.
The event kicked off with Harry Harvey, one of the original Gun Rocks team in the early 1970’s giving a personal account of his memories of the project illustrated with some of his photographs from that time.
Peta Knott from Wessex Archaeology then presented some of the findings from the most recent survey conducted in 2013 and which involved some of the more recent Tyneside 114 members. Perhaps one of the most interesting and potentially controversial findings was that some of the cannons appeared to be ‘scrap’ iron, with a number appearing to have blown muzzles. Was this vessel carrying a cargo of scrap iron cannon from Sweden to the Netherlands, which had been blown off course and wrecked on the Farnes? We shall probably never find out the truth, but Peta’s talk raised some interesting issues, which threw new light on some of the mysteries that surround this wreck site, as well as raising more questions than answers.
The final presentation was by Nicola Faulks, the current club Diving Officer, with a number of suggestions about how present members of Tyneside 114 could take the Gun Rocks Project into the future.
All in all an excellent and informative evening and it was great to see so many ex-members of the club still interested in the Gun Rocks Project.
