Sunderland, Old North Pier, Cornwall

HER Number:
12920

District:
Sunderland

Site Name:
Sunderland, Old North Pier, Cornwall

Place:
Sunderland

Map Sheet:
NZ45NW

Class:
Maritime Craft

Site Type: Broad:
Transport Vessel

Site Type: Specific:
Cargo Vessel

General Period:
Early Modern

Specific Period:
C19

Form of Evidence:
Wreckage

Description:
Shown on an Admiralty chart of 1878. The ship sank prior to that date. It lies 580 yards south of the old north pier of the harbour entrance at Sunderland and 150 yards south-east of the Outer Scar. The Cornwall was a steamer. Lies in 10 metres of water at 001 20 08 54 01 00 (Collings). Iron, 677 tons, small steamship, registered at the port of London. Built at Sunderland for the Lambton Coal Company in 1873 and owned by H.T. Morton of Durham. Her single iron propeller was powered by a two-cylinder, invert-compound steam engine that used one boiler. On 9 September 1884, the Cornwall with sixteen crew and one passenger was on route from London to Sunderland under the command of a Captain G. Bell. She was steaming steadily north, just off Scarborough in a thick fog, when at 1a.m., the 3,000-ton iron steamer Stanmore of Liverpool, accidentally rammed into her stern end, close to the engines. The force of the impact left a huge gash all the way down the side of the Cornwall, below the water-line and she immediately began to fill up with water. Most of her crew scrambled to safety over the bows of the Stanmore, which stayed with the damaged ship until the arrival of a large sea-going tug that assisted the Cornwall on her remaining passage to Sunderland. Unfortunately, the extent of the damage proved too much for her, because at 9 am and within a few hundred metres of her destination, the Cornwall went to the bottom. She was never salvaged and quickly succumbed to the elements. The wreck lies approximately 575m directly south of the old, now disused south harbour entrance to the South Docks at Hendon. The seabed around the area where the Cornwall lies in 10-11m consists mostly of flat rock and small reefs with a few short strands of kelp and a heavy coating of sediment. Much of the remaining pipes and twisted wreckage are well concreted to the bed. There is no sign of her propeller. The Ian Spokes database states that this ship ran aground. Grid reference conversion made 26.01.2011 with http://gps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/etrs89geo_natgrid.asp with Lat/Long referenced as N 54 53 39 W 01 20 26

Easting:
4239

Northing:
5569

Grid Reference:
NZ42395569

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
Peter Collings, 1991, The New Divers Guide to the North-East Coast, page 15; Young, R. (2000) Comprehensive guide to Shipwrecks of the North East Coast (The): Volume One (1740 – 1917), Tempus, Gloucestershire. p. 123, Ian T. Spokes Wreck Database, Inga Project, National Monument Record