Programme 3
Newport's Medieval Ship - The design of the ship
IntroductionThe design of the ship
Artefacts found on the ship
The Fate of the Ship
Future Plans
- Cleaning Ship Timbers
The fact that so many features of the ship were preserved means that it has been possible to reconstruct the look of the ship. She was over 25 metres long and 8 metres across and had a central mast with a square sail and possibly smaller sails on masts at the prow and stern. The ship would have been built by laying down successive runs of overlapped oak hull planks before the ribs were inserted.
Its design contains elements that show the influence of the Viking longship, and also features similar to a caravel or cog, the trading ships that became prevalent during the 15th and 16th Centuries. Thus the Newport Ship comes from a period when ship design was evolving. This was an exciting time in maritime history, when European explorers were first venturing across the oceans to discover new territories.
- Ship Timbers
Artefacts and remnants of clothing found by archaeologists show that the ship was trading with Portugal during the 1400s. It's likely that the ship was either constructed on the Atlantic coast of Spain or Northern Portugal or in South West France, in the province of Gascony.
This ship would have been armed to protect against pirates, and would have been able to serve as a warship at times of conflict. Similar ships would have been used to ferry troops, for example to transport archers from Wales to France during the Hundred Years War.
9:00PM Tuesday
Repeated on S4C Digidol 9:00PM Saturday
with English Subtitles