UNWRAPPING 300 YEARS OF MARITIME HISTORY... LITERALLY

The closure of one of Britain's biggest shipwreck salvage museums nearly led 10,000 items to be auctioned off... until a charitable trust stepped in to save the collection

- By Simon de Bruxelles

FOR FANS of maritime history and conservation, it’s akin to all your Christmases coming at once. And what makes it even more exciting is that the more than 10,000 individual items rescued from a museum fire sale each comes individually wrapped.

Spanning three centuries, they are currently stored in an anonymous warehouse on an industrial estate in Poole, Dorset, where dozens of large plastic containers are filled to the brim with historic artefacts swaddled in bubble wrap and packing tape.

The collection was originally put together by Richard Larn, a former Royal Navy diver and one of Britain’s leading historic shipwreck experts, who founded the Shipwreck Treasure Museum in the Cornish port of Charlestown in the mid-1970s.

However, the museum did not attract enough visitors and last year the difficult decision was made to sell the exhibits and the historic building that housed them.

Jessica Berry, chairman and CEO of the Maritime Archaeology Sea Trust, or MAST, spent most of last summer trying to persuade the National Heritage Lottery Fund to acquire the contents for the nation, but was unsuccessful.

Terrified that the unique collection would be broken up among private collectors after auction, she took the brave — or possibly foolhardy — decision to make an offer without really knowing exactly what she'd be getting or what condition much of it was in.

The painstaking process of unwrapping thousands of packages and assessing their contents has been under way since their arrival at the estate in March. Once they have been assessed and photographed, each item will be triaged for conservation and carefully repacked ahead of restoration.