Latest news with #DanSnow
Telegraph
16 hours ago
- General
- Telegraph
Shifting sands reveal more of ‘remarkably preserved' 1600s English warship
Shifting sands have uncovered the hull of a 17th-century English warship off the Kent coast. The Northumberland shipwreck is said to potentially be one of the best preserved wooden ships, and was found 20 metres (66ft) underwater and nine miles off the Kent coast in 1980. Now wooden decks, lengths of rope, copper cauldrons and wooden chests with some preserved cannonballs inside, which have survived 'particularly well', have been uncovered by a survey organised by Historic England with MSDS divers. The near 350-year-old protected wreck is at high risk of deterioration as shifting sands expose it to processes that may erode the well preserved wreckage, Historic England said. Dan Pascoe, its licensee who monitors the site, said: 'The Northumberland has the potential to be one of the best-preserved wooden warships in the UK. However, at 20 metres underwater and nine miles offshore, it is out of sight and mind to most people.' The Northumberland was a third-rate 70-gun warship built in Bristol in 1679 as part of Samuel Pepys's regeneration of the English navy. It sank during the 'Great Storm' of Nov 26 1703 off Kent along with three other warships, including The Mary, the location of which is still unknown. They were all part of the fleet of Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch, who reigned from 1702 to 1714. A film made by streaming service History Hit, detailing the new survey and the initial construction of the Northumberland, airs on Thursday. Creator Dan Snow said: 'Northumberland is the missing link. Built roughly halfway between the Mary Rose and HMS Victory, this wreck can fill in crucial details of shipbuilding and life at sea at that pivotal moment in our history. 'We have the Mary Rose, the Tudor time capsule – well, here's a Stuart time capsule to sit alongside it.' Future work on the site may include taking wood samples or dendrochronological sampling to find out more about the ship's construction and confirm its identity. Paul Jeffery, the marine leader at Historic England, said: 'The completeness of the Northumberland wreck site is remarkable. It is a race against time as more of the Northumberland wreck becomes exposed.'
The Independent
a day ago
- General
- The Independent
18th century shipwreck among ‘best preserved' of its time, experts say
Latest diving surveys have revealed a 'remarkable' completeness of the wreckage of an 18th century English warship preserved on the seabed. Twenty metres deep underwater and nine miles off the Kent coast, the Northumberland shipwreck is said to potentially be one of the 'best preserved' wooden ships. The latest survey, organised by Historic England with MSDS divers, found wooden decks, lengths of rope, copper cauldrons, and wooden chests with some preserved cannon balls inside had survived 'particularly well'. The 320-year-old protected wreck site is at high risk of deterioration as shifting sands expose it to processes which may erode the well preserved wreckage, Historic England said. Its licensee Dan Pascoe, who monitors the site, said: 'The Northumberland has the potential to be one of the best-preserved wooden warships in the UK. 'However, at 20 metres underwater and nine miles offshore, it is out of sight and mind to most people.' The Northumberland was a third rate 70-gun warship built in Bristol in 1679 as part of Samuel Pepys's regeneration of the English Navy. It sank during the 'Great Storm' on November 26, 1703 off Kent along with three other warships, including The Mary – the location of which is still unknown. They were all part of Queen Anne's fleet, the last Stuart monarch, reigning from 1702 to 1714. A film made by streaming service History Hit airs on Thursday detailing the new survey and the initial construction of the Northumberland. Creator Dan Snow said: 'Northumberland is the missing link. Built roughly halfway between the Mary Rose and HMS Victory, this wreck can fill in crucial details of shipbuilding and life at sea at that pivotal moment in our history. 'We have the Mary Rose, the ' Tudor time capsule' – well here's a Stuart time capsule to sit alongside it.' Future work on the site may include taking wood samples or dendrochronological sampling to find out more about the ship's construction and confirm its identity. Paul Jeffery, marine leader at Historic England, said: 'The completeness of the Northumberland wreck site is remarkable. 'It is a race against time as more of the Northumberland wreck becomes exposed.'
The Independent
a day ago
- General
- The Independent
Treasures of British warship sunk in 1703 storm finally revealed three centuries on
The wreck of an 'exceptionally well-preserved' 18th-century warship is revealing its treasures as shifting sands uncover its hull. The Northumberland, which sank in 1703 during the 'Great Storm', has sat on the seabed off the Kent coast for 320 years. But divers have recently discovered well-preserved wooden chests, iron cannons, and copper cauldrons previously covered by sand and sediment. Historians say the new finds could be 'the missing link' to understanding more about shipbuilding during the Stuart period, but warned they are now at a 'high risk of deterioration' as they become exposed to the elements. The ship was built in 1679 as part of Samuel Pepys' regeneration of the English Navy. It sank on 26 November 1703 on the treacherous Goodwin Sands, where it has lain ever since. Divers have uncovered more of the skeleton of the ship than was previously thought to have survived, alongside evidence of multiple decks and part of a wooden gun carriage. Dan Snow, Founder and Creative Director of History Hit, said: ' Northumberland is THE missing link. Built roughly halfway between the Mary Rose and HMS Victory, this wreck can fill in crucial details of shipbuilding and life at sea at that pivotal moment in our history. We have the Mary Rose, the 'Tudor time capsule', well here's a Stuart time capsule to sit alongside it.' But experts from Historic England have said the moving sediment threatens to expose it to 'physical, chemical and biological processes' that could damage the artefacts. 'Shifting sands, strong currents and wood-boring sea creatures, which burrow into and damage wooden structures on the seabed, continue to make this fragile Protected Wreck Site unstable, putting it at high risk of deterioration,' they said. 'It lies over a large area of the seabed between 15-20 metres deep and is covered by concretion or marine deposits; however, more of it is being exposed every day.' Alison James, Heritage and Systems Manager at MSDS Marine, added the wreck 'has so much potential to tell us more about the English Navy and ships of the period,' calling it a 'rich resource for local communities to benefit from'. Future work on the site may include taking wood samples or dendrochronological sampling to find out more about the ship's construction and help confirm the ship's identity, experts said. It comes ahead of the release of history film 'Shipwreck Northumberland and the Great Storm' on Thursday 31 July.
Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Times
Pompeii: Life in the City review — Dan Snow brings the Romans to smelly life
I'm starting to wonder what constitutes Dan Snow's breakfast. Three Shredded Wheat feels a given, perhaps with a side of eggs, a peanut butter energy smoothie and a gallon of coffee. Every time I switch on 5 — the channel formerly known as Channel 5 — there he is, striding like a colossus above terracotta soldiers, dominating the scenery of Stonehenge or discovering Atlantis. Last month he was 8,000ft up in the clouds, hotfooting it around Machu Picchu. By my count, he has fronted ten historical series in three years, his perpetual wonder undimmed. He is unstoppable. So it's no surprise that he's back, this time in the world's most famous ash-covered city, for Pompeii: Life in the City with Dan Snow. Somehow the cameraman kept up with him. Along with ancient Egypt, Nazis and sharks, the preserved-in-time city is one of those subjects TV never tires of and almost seems to fetishise. This time, though, we weren't concerned with close-ups of the poor 2,000-year-old residents, immortalised in their poses of twisted torment. Instead we had Snow offering such observations as: 'Actually, urine was big business.' Indeed, if the first episode was a light lesson about the inequity of ancient Rome — at least half the sentences seemed to begin 'If you were a slave in Pompeii …' before describing the lot of the oppressed classes — what many viewers will quote in a week's time will be the earthier, more odoriferous details. Take Mr Garlic Farts. Not Snow, but a client at one of the city's brothels, as described by a sex worker. It's probably for the best that the programme had a co-presenter, Snow's fellow historian Kate Lister, to describe this part of the programme (it wouldn't have sounded right coming from Snow). Judging by the graffiti on the wall, the women workers clearly had more imaginative quips than their clients. While they wrote of Mr Garlic Farts, the best the clients offered was 'I screwed a lot of girls here'. Your sympathy for the women of Pompeii stretched across 2,000 years. • Fake or Fortune review — engrossing mystery of a 'Churchill' painting Snow stayed on the safer ground of the ancient launderette, where the washing of togas also wasn't for the faint-hearted. The workers there would toil from dawn until dusk using a 'special kind of bleach'. What bleach was that, you ask. Snow explained, while half-demonstrating: 'Standing in one of these troughs here, they'd stamp the toga into the bleach. Trouble is, that bleach is human and horse urine … it's splashing everywhere! Stinking!' And this was where we got to the subject of urine being big business. In AD70 the emperor Vespasian put a tax on the disposal of pee, which was why public urinals became known as vespasiani in Italian. By this point, with Snow having also mentioned the 'smell of human poo in the gutter' and Lister describing 'Nigella the public pig-keeper', who kept her swine in the city centre, I'd say the programme stunk, if that didn't sound so uncomplimentary. Actually it was the kind of midweek history programme to be filed under gently interesting. You did learn a few things, not least that Pompeii smells much better today than it did then. ★★★☆☆ Love TV? Discover the best shows on Netflix, the best Prime Video TV shows, the best Disney+ shows , the best Apple TV+ shows, the best shows on BBC iPlayer , the best shows on Sky and Now, the best shows on ITVX, the best shows on Channel 4 streaming, the best shows on Paramount+ and our favourite hidden gem TV shows. Don't forget to check our comprehensive TV guide for the latest listings
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS on last night's TV: Creepy AI distracts from Dan Snow's boisterous history of life in Pompeii
A strong whiff of AI hung over Pompeii: Life In The City, as Dan Snow bounded enthusiastically around the ruins near Naples. Animated scenes, apparently created with computer generated images, superimposed ghostly Roman figures against the ancient backdrop. Dan and his fellow presenter Kate Lister took a novel approach to this jaunty history documentary, by concentrating on how the town of 20,000 inhabitants lived rather than died. There were no plaster casts and almost no references to the volcanic explosion of 79AD that buried Pompeii under ash for nearly two millennia. But the reconstructed elements were a real distraction. It's usual on history shows to include shots of extras in costume, silently acting out key scenes. The computer graphics that replaced them were two-dimensional and unconvincing, bad enough to keep me from absorbing Dan's boisterous explanations. A slave and a donkey trundled around a millstone, grinding flour for bread. Two wealthy brothers, former slaves themselves, gazed blankly across the atrium of their luxurious villa. An expressionless woman stood in the doorway of a brothel. These clips were played repeatedly, and each time I thought, 'That looks weird. Why not use human extras?' For many actors, jobs as extras are a lifeline — a way of making contacts as well as money, and perhaps earning an Equity card. Supplanting people with AI is a bad idea for everyone. This ought to be obvious. And yet, the BBC is embracing AI with gusto. Its online news service now employs Artificial Intelligence to generate summaries of long stories, according to Rhodri Talfan Davies, who is 'BBC Executive Sponsor of Gen AI'. That sounds like a title stolen from the sitcom W1A but I promise it's real. If the Beeb is willing to auto-create news copy with computers, how long until they replace the scriptwriters, too? AI could probably churn out inane patter for celebrity quiz shows and the commentary for sports events. Would we even notice the difference? Thankfully, on the evidence of this Pompeii documentary, I believe we would. The non- human extras were unrealistic enough to be subtly creepy. Despite the AI distractions, we did learn that Romans rarely got a full night's sleep. Archaeologist Dr Hannah Platts explained they went to bed at nightfall, but got up in the small hours to carry out chores by candlelight. Then they tucked in for a second kip till dawn. That sounds a hideous idea, a sort of mass insomnia. To make it even more exhausting, their working week was nine days long. On the other hand, they had about 100 days off each year, probably to catch up on their sleep. We were also told that Roman laundries used human urine to bleach togas. This was such a lucrative business that the Emperor Vespasian slapped a tax on wee. Don't tell Chancellor Rachel Reeves. She's already taking the proverbial.
