HMS Northumberland 1703
Marker: recorded wreck position (Age of Sail).
Key facts
| Name | HMS Northumberland | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1703 | English Wikipedia lead text (year following a loss verb, parsed) |
| Era | Age of Sail | derived from year |
| Ship type | third-rate | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | Storm or weather | Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence |
| Nationality / flag | Kingdom of England | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Operator | Royal Navy | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Sea / ocean | North Sea | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | England | official dataset |
| Position | 51.2580, 1.5003 | Historic England Protected Wreck Sites, listed latitude/longitude (OGL v3) |
| Protected Wreck | List entry 1000058 | Historic England |
| Designated | 1981-06-08 | Historic England |
| Restricted area | 28.26 ha | Historic England |
| Grid reference | TR 44319 56803 | Historic England |
About the wreck
HMS Northumberland was a 70-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built by Francis Bayley of Bristol in 1677/79. She partook in the last great battle of the War of English Succession and the first battle of the War of Spanish Succession. She was lost in the Great Storm of November 1703.
She was named in honour of Charles II's illegitimate son, George Fitzroy, his son with Barbara Palmer (Duchess of Cleveland). George Fitzroy was made the Duke of Northumberland in 1678. This was the first vessel to bear the name Northumberland in the English and Royal Navy.
HMS Northumberland was awarded the Battle Honours Barfleur 1692, and Vigo 1702.
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 remains of the Northumberland lie south of three wrecks of other ships lost in the same storm - the Stirling Castle, Restoration and Mary. The Northumberland and Mary (the latter misidentified as the Restoration) were found by recreational divers in 1980. The site was designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 the following year. The current designation is under Statutory Instrument 2004/2395, of a 300 metres (980 ft) radius around 51° 15.4802’ N 01° 30.0161’ E.
The Archaeological Diving Unit (ADU) conducted a number of dives on the site over the next three decades and since 1999 technology has been applied in the form of magnetometer and side-scan sonar surveys.
Location
- Recorded position: 51.2580, 1.5003 (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 HMS Northumberland (1679) (revision 1326779111), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Wreck”; 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).
Nearby wrecks
- HMS Restoration 1703 · 0 km
- HMS Mary 1703 · 0 km
- HMS Stirling Castle 1703 · 2 km
- Goodwins & Downs 8 5 km
- Unknown Wreck (GAD8; previously known as the 'Goodwins Cannon Site') 5 km
- Rooswijk 1740 · 6 km
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