Mary Rose could be last great wreck saved
THE Mary Rose will be the last great ship salvaged from British waters, Historic England has said, as visitors will explore shipwrecks using virtual reality instead.
Mark Dunkley, chief maritime archaeologist at Historic England, said the agency was working on allowing visitors to explore shipwrecks using VR headsets because it was too expensive and labour-intensive to bring them up.
There are thought to be around 40,000 shipwrecks around the British coast. The Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s beloved warship which sank in 1545 in the Solent, was salvaged in 1982. Last year a new visitor centre and museum in Portsmouth was finally completed to house the wreck. But speaking as it announced that two more wrecks had been listed by the Government, Historic England says it’s likely to remain one of a kind. Mr Dunkley said: “With the Mary Rose, that came up when I was still in short trousers in the 1980s, the process has only just finished, with the new museum being completed last year.
“I don’t think any massive shipwreck excavation is ever going to happen like that again, so the work that Historic England is doing is keeping these shipwrecks alive by virtual reality.”
Three ships can currently be explored using VR headsets – HMS Invincible, HMS Colossal and HMT Arfon.
A pair of 17th or 18th century merchant ships which sank near Chesil Beach, and a First World War U-boat near Whitby, have been granted protection by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, it announced today, bringing the number of protected wreck sites to 53.