Dunwich Bank Wreck
Marker: recorded wreck position (Date not recorded).
Key facts
| Name | Dunwich Bank Wreck | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Ship type | shipwreck | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Sea / ocean | North Sea | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | England | official dataset |
| Position | 52.2527, 1.6404 | Historic England Protected Wreck Sites, listed latitude/longitude (OGL v3) |
| Protected Wreck | List entry 1000073 | Historic England |
| Designated | 1994-07-12 | Historic England |
| Restricted area | 7.06 ha | Historic England |
| Grid reference | TM 48567 67863 | Historic England |
About the wreck
The remains of an unknown armed cargo vessel dating to the sixteenth to seventeenth century were identified off Dunwich, Suffolk, England in 1993. The site was designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act on 12 July 1994. The wreck is a Protected Wreck managed by Historic England.
Diving & visiting
This is a designated Protected Wreck under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. Under the Act, diving on or otherwise interfering with the wreck inside its restricted area requires a licence; see the Historic England list entry for details.
The wreck site includes a wreck mound with associated bronze muzzle-loading guns, breech-loading guns and unknown concreted objects. Timber pieces and bronze cannon have been recovered from the site. The wreck is believed to date from 1556 to 1600 based on the dating of recovered guns. Based on the contemporary value of bronze guns, it was deemed that they represented a foundered wreck, rather than having been jettisoned by a ship.
A local fisherman found timber with embedded cannonballs in 1993, later investigation by Suffolk Underwater Studies Unit produced further wreck material and a bronze cannon. Six cannon have been recorded on the site by the Archaeological Diving Unit and Wessex Archaeology.
In 2020, further investigation was undertaken by Wessex Archaeology, funded by Historic England.
Location
- Recorded position: 52.2527, 1.6404 (Historic England Protected Wreck Sites, listed latitude/longitude (OGL v3); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: North Sea
- Nearest coast: England
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Dunwich Bank Wreck (revision 1243334836), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “The wreck”, “Discovery and investigation”; condensed by selecting paragraphs; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Protected Wreck data © Historic England 2026. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
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Browse more: UK & Ireland wrecks · wrecks off England · North Sea