The Klein Hollandia: Discovering a 17th-century Dutch warship off Eastbourne

This article is from Current Archaeology issue 406

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For almost 20 years, skipper David Ronnan has operated his dive boat, Our W, out of Sovereign Harbour in Eastbourne. These trips were initially taken with his wife Sylvia Pryer to find and explore wrecks in local waters, and since 2004 they have made many contributions to the database of sunken vessels listed along the Sussex coastline. After Sylvia died in early 2019, Dave kept up their love of searching for new wrecks to dive – and in April of that year he accepted the challenge of investigating a magnetic anomaly found by the UK Hydrographic Office. First documented in a survey of September 2015, the unidentified lump was listed as being 35m long and 15m wide, but standing just 1.5m proud of the seabed. The shape was suggestive of a partially buried wreck, but on his initial visit to the site Dave took a charter of just two divers, on the chance of diving something or maybe diving nothing – which often happens.

Tom Stockman and Graham Owen (who is registered blind) had both dived with Dave before, though the three had never previously worked as a trio, and all were keen to investigate. As Tom (a diver since 2009) told me, ‘nine times out of ten [a new mark] turns out to be nothing important, but you do it for the tenth one’. Sure enough, he now describes this trip as one of his most memorable.

As they explored the site, the first thing that the divers noticed were several very large, deliberately shaped blocks of stone on the seabed that were clearly not natural. Where had they come from? The answer became clear as Tom and Graham swam a bit further, and came across a cluster of iron cannons – a first for Tom. These had surely come from a wreck and, after swimming along a little more, Tom’s torch suddenly picked out the turquoise green of another cannon, this time made of bronze. Tom remembers shouting out to Graham with excitement – not easy underwater – and grabbing Graham’s hand to help him feel what they had found.

In total, that first dive identified five bronze cannons and at least eight of iron, and when Tom and Graham surfaced to tell Dave about what they had seen, he got on the phone to me at the Nautical Archaeology Society. Dave and I know each other of old: we have worked together for almost ten years, primarily on the Holland No.5 submarine (one of the first submarines to be commissioned by the Royal Navy, in 1903; see http://www.nauticalarchaeologysociety.org/ holland-no5-submarine) and the Normans Bay wreck, a 17th- century warship that was also found close to Eastbourne (http://www.nauticalarchaeologysociety.org/normans-bay-wreck) – though at the time of Dave’s call I had just returned from my Easter holidays. I recall turning my phone back on at Heathrow Airport to find an intriguing message, saying that they had found something that I was ‘going to be interested in’. Of course, I called Dave right back, and we put together a small group of divers to assess the site with our own eyes.

In the dive that followed, I was buddied with Martin Davies from InDepth Photography. When you are 32m underwater, visibility is often not great, but on this occasion it was good enough to see the iron cannons that would explain the UK Hydrographic Office’s magnetic anomaly, as well as some of the bronze cannons and a lot of wood from the ship’s hull structure. Promisingly, it was also evident that some of the bronze cannons were marked with letters and numbers – vital clues that might help to identify the ship’s date and nationality, though it was already obvious that this was a vessel of some age. With that in mind, and with Dave’s blessing, I sent an email to Historic England, whose role it is to recommend to the Secretary of State at DCMS whether a site should be protected. They agreed, and the site was designated a Protected Wreck under the Protection of Wrecks Act (1973), with that designation coming into force on 5 July 2019 – pretty swift work for any nation’s legislature. Protected Wreck status means that access to, and work on, the site is regulated by licence, and from the beginning Dave and I were named licensees so that we could both undertake dives on the wreck and continue to gather the evidence needed to identify it. It was the start of an exciting journey, and our findings did not disappoint.

Identifying the wreck

Diving any wreck site at 32m requires some planning. To some people, this is not deep, but for others it is pretty demanding – and undertaking any actual work at that depth is vastly different to diving for a look around. When you have a job to do in the water, 45 minutes goes in a blink. Since 2019, we have undertaken more than 450 dives of the site, working between April and December, during which time visibility has ranged from 2m to 10m. We tend to tailor tasks to the conditions expected or experienced – there is no point trying to do a photogrammetry survey in only 2m of visibility, for example – while first-time divers are not given a specific job but are sent off with a waterproof site-plan to get their bearings and witness what a wreck looks like after 350 years in the English Channel.

Just like Tom and Graham’s first visit in April 2019, one of the first things people notice are still those rectangular-cut blocks of stone in the middle of the site. They are definitely man-made and, at 3.5m long, would be very heavy. Divers often ask if they were ballast to help keep the ship low in the water, but they are far too big and heavy and would have been cumbersome to move; instead, we think they were cargo.

The mass of cannons on the wreck is equally eye-catching, and they have proven particularly important in terms of establishing the ship’s identity. While the iron ones are all rusted and concreted (covered with corrosion), two of the bronze examples have yielded very helpful clues. Both bear the name ‘Ouderogge’, which testifies that they were made for the Admiralty of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, and cannon no.6 is also marked with two crossed anchorsand the initials ‘P P P’ – pro patria pugno, ‘I fight for the Fatherland’, the admiralty’s heraldic motto. Better still, one of the guns has even revealed its date of manufacture: 1670. Armed with this information, we reached out to wreck researcher and previous Deputy Receiver of Wreck, Becky Austin, and to Nico Brink, an expert in Dutch historic ordnance. These efforts swiftly bore fruit, and a likely candidate was suggested: the Klein Hollandia.

Built in Rotterdam in 1654, the Klein Hollandia was involved in all the major sea battles of the Second Anglo-Dutch War between 1665 and 1667. Unfortunately, we have no records for the ship’s construction, as the archives that were held in the Department of Navy at The Hague were destroyed by fire in 1844. What we do have, though, are two drawings of the ship, both by Van de Velde the Elder, and both held by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The ship was built using 11-inch Amsterdam feet, and it measured 133ft 10in long from stem to sternpost, 32ft 5in broad, and 13ft 3in deep in hold. In modern terms this is about 37m long by 9m wide, and in accordance with the English rating system the Klein Hollandia would have been a fourth-rate ship. Naval ratings refer to the number of guns that the vessel carried, and we know that the Klein Hollandia was listed as a 56-gun ship, though a reference from 1672 attests that it carried fewer in peacetime, at least: it was armed with only 44 at the time of its loss.

Bravery and betrayal

The Klein Hollandia’s naval career was eventful, to say the least. During our research, we discovered that the ship had taken a beating at the 1665 Battle of Lowestoft and had to be extensively repaired, but perhaps its most dramatic engagement was the Four Days Battle in June 1666. This was one of the longest naval engagements in history, with equally impressive numbers on both sides. The Dutch fleet consisted of more than 100 ships, fitted with over 4,500 cannons and nearly 22,000 crew, marines, and soldiers. The English fleet, meanwhile, included 81 ships-of-the-line, armed with nearly 4,500 cannons and manned with a total of just over 21,000 crew and soldiers, accompanied by numerous smaller vessels and fire ships. Things started to go wrong for the Klein Hollandia when it collided with another Dutch ship that was on fire and out of control. The Klein Hollandia sustained damage and itself caught fire at the bow; with much difficulty the ships were parted and eventually saved, though the stubborn blaze twice flared up after the crew thought they had put it out. Incredibly, the Klein Hollandia’s captain, Evert van Gelder, then returned to the fray and the ship continued to fight, subsequently sustaining further severe damage.

The Second Anglo-Dutch War ended in 1667, but that did not mean that relations between the two countries were any warmer. During this cessation in hostilities, Charles II signed the 1670 Treaty of Dover with Louis XIV of France, by which they agreed to destroy the Dutch state and divide it up between them. Charles II promised to support French policy in Europe in return for a French subsidy that he hoped would ease his financial dependence on Parliament. The stage was set for further conflict, but the hostilities of the Third Anglo-Dutch War did not really begin in earnest until two years later when, in March 1672, a small English squadron under the command of Sir Robert Holmes attacked an escorted fleet of Dutch merchant ships that was returning home from the Mediterranean. Among the warships accompanying these vessels was the Klein Hollandia.

Letters sent from a Danish envoy at the time state that the convoy was a ‘richly laden Dutch merchant fleet made up of the Smyrna fleet’. Smyrna, now modern-day I˙zmir in Turkey, was famous for its valuable silk trade, and we know that this fleet also visited Livorno, Genoa, and Messina (in Italy); Málaga (in Spain); and Lisbon (in Portugal) before heading back home, although we don’t yet know exactly which ships went to which ports. As the Dutch fleet made its way back up the Channel, the English ships attacked. A fierce battle broke out between the Isle of Wight and Beachy Head, and during the fighting the Klein Hollandia was damaged and its commander, Jan van Nes, was killed.

The ship was captured and boarded by the crew of the 60-gun ship HMS Gloucester, but shortly afterwards the Klein Hollandia foundered and sank, with the loss of 150 sailors – both Dutch and English. This surprise attack in peacetime was condemned as an act of piracy by the Dutch, and following such provocative action there was no turning back. England declared war on the Dutch Republic just a few days later, and the Third Anglo-Dutch War began – a conflict that would last until February 1674. As for the Gloucester, it too would ultimately be lost to the waves, after striking a sandbank off the north Norfolk coast in 1682 (see CA 398 for ongoing research into its wreck site).

Knowing the Klein Hollandia’s historical context, when diving the wreck we were very mindful of it being the last resting place of sailors. Two elements of human remains have been found on the site since its discovery, one a complete ulna and the other a section of skull. Both were carefully recovered from the seabed (after contacting the Sussex coroner and the UK Ministry of Defence, and obtaining permission from Historic England), after which they were transferred first to the Historic England conservation facility at Fort Cumberland, Portsmouth, and then to Bexhill Museum for curation.

Archaeological insights

What can be said of the ship itself? Exposed sections of wood can be found scattered all over the wreck site, and we have been able to document sections of the hull through photogrammetry survey and measured drawings. The most coherent area of structural remains lies to the south of the main assemblage, where a run of timber frame tops and associated planking stretches for more than 25m in an east–west alignment. Analysis of this area of timber, together with the presence of ballast stones, suggests that this piece came from low down in the inner hull, possibly representing the bottom frames of the ship, very close to the centre keelson (a reinforcing structure on top of the keel). It is also believed, due to the location of other features on the site, such as the galley hearth (normally located towards the bow of the ship), that this was part of the starboard side of the ship.

Further clues came in 2022, when a small number of wood samples were taken for dendrochronological (tree-ring) analysis, involving two planks from the internal ceiling of the hull made of conifer, and a single ceiling plank made of oak. Analysis of this latter sample (undertaken by DendroArch and funded by Historic England) indicates that at least some of the timbers employed in the ship’s construction were sourced from modern Germany, in an area where the Dutch are known to have acquired their wood in the 17th century.

Having sunk while still provisioned for its voyage, the wreck represents something of a time capsule, preserving many objects used by its officers and crew. Among these are numerous pieces of ceramics, including domestic wares from northern Europe, as well as lots of fragments of Italian majolica pottery decorated with a white tin-glaze and painted with blue nature-themed designs. These would have come from the area around Savona, to the west of Genoa, and their presence supports a 17th-century date for the wreck. A particularly characterful pottery find was a complete Bellarmine jug, with a grimacing bearded face and its cork still in place, which was discovered and recovered for conservation in 2019; a smaller jug was found and raised this year.

Rather more enigmatic was a pile of mostly square-cut flat tiles that we found to the west of the large stone blocks mentioned at the start of this article. There appear to be hundreds of them, and in 2020 the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE) funded a survey by the NAS which included the recovery of two tiles for analysis by Historic England experts. A suite of scientific techniques including petrographic examination, establishing their mineralogical composition, and isotope analysis identified the stone as being marble from the Apuan Alps quarries close to Carrara, Italy. This location is home to some of the finest marble, and these tiles were probably being brought home by the Klein Hollandia for commercial purposes. Perhaps, as well as safeguarding the merchant convoy, the captain had hoped to do some trading of his own. The valuable cargo would have been very heavy, however – might this explain why the Klein Hollandia was under-armed at the time of its capture, carrying only 44 of the 56 cannons that it had been designed to accommodate?

Moving away from the Klein Hollandia’s past to its future, in April 2021 NAS divers documented extensive trawl damage to the site, which prompted a joint decision by the RCE and Historic England to support further investigations of the wreck. Although the ship has been designated as a protected wreck site, there is no guarantee that threats like looting, fishing, or damage by natural causes (such as shifting sandbanks or erosion) can be prevented, and documenting the remains before they are lost or damaged will help to ensure that the information that they contain is preserved. In terms of preventing looting, we are working with RCE and Historic England on a project that has forensically marked high-value objects identified on the seabed. This new form of technology makes objects traceable and, as the Protection of Wrecks Act marks its 50th birthday this year, represents an exciting step forward in the protection of vulnerable underwater archaeological sites.

Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank everyone who has been involved in the work on the wreck, especially the finders Dave Ronnan, Tom Stockman, and Graham Owen. Thanks, too, to the regular team members Sara Hasan, Martin Davies, Jon Parlour, and Lee Street. Some 116 divers have helped to document the site, and have contributed so much to our understanding. I am also grateful to the researchers Becky Austin, Nico Brink, Frank Fox, and Jacob Bart Hak. Finally, thanks to the wonderful folks at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands and Historic England for their support, and to Bexhill Museum where the artefacts are being curated and displayed.

Further information:
The work on the Klein Hollandia was filmed as part of the 2023 series of Digging for Britain. The programme aired on BBC2 on 22 January, but is now available to watch on the BBC iPlayer. You can also learn more about the wreck on the Nautical Archaeology Society’s website: http://www.nauticalarchaeologysociety.org/klein-hollandia.

Source:
Mark Beattie-Edwards is the CEO of the Nautical Archaeology Society, where he has worked since 2001. Mark is an archaeology graduate of the University of Southampton, and is currently the licensee of two protected wrecks off the Sussex coast, as well as the nominated archaeologist for the protected wreck of the London in the Thames (see CA 308).

All Images: Martin Davies, unless otherwise stated