The trouble with Romney.

The trouble with Romney.

This is the Edmund Gostello chart which, if you zoom in, depicts where the 4 royal navy warships sank in 1707. It shows Association, Eagle, Romney and even gives the correct position of the Fireship Firebrand. Its only fault is that it has the Eagle & Romney sites mixed up. So, if the chart is correct on 3 counts as to where 3 of the wrecks are now known to be- Why has the Romney still been so elusive? The chart is correct and has even been indorsed by the Royal navy as it carries a large Board of Ordnance mark shown in red stamped upon it. The navy are not generally given to fantasy so to me the chart must be correct on all counts. Well, this is how I think the information on the chart came about- 

Two men,  Thomas Netherton and James Durnford, were sent to Scilly to survey the 4 shipwrecks on behalf of the navy, and along with two engineers to salvage what they could. They could see masts and flags etc standing up on 3 of the wrecks. They could see Association as it was sticking out of the water between Gilstone ledge & eastard ledge. They knew where Firebrand was in Smith Sound from the size of wreckage and from the testimony of survivors ashore there. The wreck they thought was Romney on Crebinnick was given away by the tops of the standing rigging but it was otherwise too deep to see for sure which ship it in fact was. As for the Eagle, shown here on the Crim, no evidence of her exact position was on show just floating wreckage and one survivor who had made it to a rock now called Carn Lawrence- (the rock was later named after him). Lawrence came from the Romney and would have tried to share where his ship then came to be wrecked- but its very doubtful if he actually knew- its very unlikely that he knew the Crim from the Crebinnick let alone exactly what rock Romney was lost on-afterall, his captain didnt even know the fleet was at Scilly & nor did the Admiral of the fleet. So with basically very little to go on, the navy men hazarded a guess as to which ship was on Crebinnick and which was lost around the area of the Crim.  They guessed wrong and thats what went onto the chart. They removed as much wood and iron as they could from the Association and Firebrand, they also assisted with the grounded Phoenix then left the Islands. This chart was then produced using the information gathered above.

Association gun by A n other.

Move now to the 1960's and the search for these lost ships. Association was proven to be where the chart stated it to be. So too was Firebrand. They looked for the Romney on Crebinnick but instead found the Eagle lying there -but essentially the Gostello chart proved correct on all 3 wrecks in the places shown-but it showed up the guess work done by the navy's men as to identity of those wrecks. A search of the Crim revealed an old cannon site in deep water west side of the  reef. Roland Morris stated this was Romney but he was wrong. I dived that wreck for 3 years and found the site is not English but more likely mediterenean and probably Ottoman Empire. And with just 24 guns it is too small for the 40 gun Romney- it also dates from around the late 1630's.  I found numerous Ottoman Empire clay pipes and 3 different sherds of pottery found on the site were all mediterenean in origin. Nothing dated to earlier than 1630 but the pipes were mid to early 17th century. As a note of interest- The word Crim could have originated from Crimea- the Crim Tartars were sailors from Crimea Turkey and were referred to as the Crim- or the Crim tartars. Either way it again suggests people of the ottoman empire-so this reef could well have been named after this wreck. I received an award for my work on this wreck site from the Nautical archaeology society. For the most part I was working it alone in 35 to 45meters depth.

My site plan of the Crim site. The wreck is likely to be ottoman empire circa 1630.

No other site on the Crim thus far found has been the Romney either. Next we have the spanner in the works- in the form of a narrative, taken from the log of one of the ships that escaped this disaster, which stated that the Romney was lost on the same rocks as Association! Indeed there are far too many guns around where the Association was lost to be from just one wreck- but my research shows there's been at least 2 other gun ships lost thereabouts so this is bound to be the case.

 
I still favour the Crim-Why? Because 3 men, the two navy guys and one survivor, emphatically place one of the wrecks out that way and their evidence clearly puts her in deep water as no standing wreckage was found to be on show. Further to this, the narrative I just stated is vague-('rocks') and comes from a vessel in bad weather trying to escape the disaster itself. In such circumstances one ship in trouble can easily mistake which ships are immediately around themselves- as was found to be the case in other narratives from other ships logs involved in the disaster whom believed they were by this or that ship when they were later found to be mistaken.

So where is the Romney? For this I turn to another narrative of the time that states how-when the fleet found itself standing into danger, "all the ships that turned to North were lost- and all the ships that turned to southward were saved." To this I think the Romney could well have struck the east side of a reef as indeed did  had the Association and Eagle. So if Romney may similarly have struck, then the prevailing swells here, which always emanate from the Northwest, would have pushed her off and forcing her out into deep water and towards the Southeast of whatever rock it was she struck, making the search area vast. Applying this same theory in search of Romney- is how and why I found the Bassenthwaite which also struck the Crim in 1836. I found her in deep water Southeast of the Crim while searching for Romney. The Thornliebank wreck has also been spread across the same reef from NW towards the SE. These two facts show my theory is sound-and it has been encouraging to me in my search for the Romney- but I fear the Romney will be deeper still and possibly in over 40meters. She may have even struck the Gunner rather than Crim or possibly even the Nundeeps.

Another theory that I had and applied before in my searching, was that if the Romney was originally thought to be on the Crebinnick, then what the navy men then thought was the Eagle could be placed between Crebinnick and the Gilstone- putting her on either Retarrier or Issacs Ledge. I looked and failed to find her on either-however I did find one old iron gun and a few dateable items off to the side of the wreck of the SS Schiller which, interestingly enough was also on the east side of the Retarrier.  The one gun I did find was standing on its barrel in a hole among the boulders and I could physically move it side to side with its cascabel button. Sadly I was at the end of my reels length at that point in the dive, so could not survey the area further -and I had very little idea as to where I was on the reef at the time. I hit all around the Schiller on later dates but never located the spot again. All I do know is that Schiller wreckage was close by the gun. Somewhere there by the Schiller is another much older wreck.

In any theorizing I apply to this project-I am of course hoping Romney never glanced off a rock and sailed on to sink to the north as many other wrecks have done in this area before from hitting Crim or the Bishop rocks- All one can do is go with a current theory until it is exhausted then come up with a new theory and apply that to its conclusion too- As I have tried to show above- there are far too many variables in the search for this wreck- and that is the trouble with Romney!