SDO14938 - The Swash Channel Wreck, Dorset. Tree-Ring Analysis of Ship Timbers

‘This report summarises work undertaken to assess and sample in situ timbers of a wreck known as the Swash Channel Wreck, lying underwater in the approaches to Poole Harbour, Dorset, with a view to providing precise dating evidence and a likely provenance for the timbers, to assist in characterising, and possibly identifying the wreck. Samples were taken from framing timbers exposed on the seabed to complement a single treering date from one of two timbers sampled in 2005, soon after the wreck's designation under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. Tree-ring series from two of the newly sampled framing timbers have been correlated with mean sequences from Germany, the Netherlands, and a previously sampled wreck off the south coast of England. The dating suggests that the parent timbers were felled during AD 1628, and appears to confirm a German or Dutch origin for the framing timbers employed in the ship's construction.’