Portus Setantiorum

wyrearchaeology · **Posted:** Sun Mar 15, 2009 8:00 am

Jayne,

A bridge seems highly unlikely. These things are out in Morecambe Bay, so there's not much with bridging. I'm more inclined to think 'pillars holding up now long since gone sewerage outlet pipe'.

rossallbeach · **Posted:** Sun Mar 15, 2009 11:07 am

63 years later and nothing changes,keep looking Brian.
Phil

swbirdy64 · **Joined:** Fri Jan 02, 2009 3:54 pm **Posts:** 43

Right heres my twopenneth visited site on numerous occasions definatly shipwreck second world war might have sailed from iceland but if memory serves me right was faroese vessel. Will ask local experts ie the lifeboat crew they usualy come up with the goods."The faroees sent anything that would float packed with fish" said my grandfather but there was good money to be had at that time. Quite a few were sunk by the germans and dozens died I know this as i attended an honour guard in Torshaven capital of Faroe Islands in 1998 to honour them got pics somewhere. But bad weather and poor state did for this ship !

wyrearchaeology · **Posted:** Sun Mar 15, 2009 3:26 pm

Phil,

That's me in the flatcap first time I was out there.

Steve,

What part of the ship would the pillars actually have been then?

swbirdy64 · **Joined:** Fri Jan 02, 2009 3:54 pm **Posts:** 43

They were definatly Steel ships funnels if memory serves me right will get close up ie hands on photos sometime in next fortnight depending on tides if anyone fancies comming along let me know

wyrearchaeology · **Posted:** Mon Mar 16, 2009 12:20 am

Funnels...I never thought of them. It'd make sense though.

Jayne · **Joined:** Sun Apr 06, 2008 10:01 am **Posts:** 79

That would make the biggest pile of ballast rocks I've ever seen (not that I've seen many) and that Morecomb Bay has silted up a fair heck in the last 100 years.
Could that indicate that the other"island" to the left of the funnels is another ship?

wyrearchaeology · **Posted:** Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:53 am

Jayne,

A lot of these wrecks are right out in the bay and can only be seen at a very low tide. Morecambe Bay wouldn't need to silt up any for this to happen. Kings Scar is a notorious bank of shingle beneath the water and at low tide has claimed a great many ships over time. As for the ballast, I'm not an expert either, but these were fairly large ships and having witnessed the even larger Roro boats offloading fifty-odd fully-laden lorries at a time, those rocks seem a perfectly acceptable amount by comparison.

DaveH · **Posted:** Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:46 am

The stoney areas are both certainly ship-shaped being a bit pointy at one end and broad at t'other which might support the ballast theory. If you google 'wrecks ballast' you might be surprised to see from the huge number of site hits that ballast piles are often the only visible clues to a shipwreck. Quite a weight of stone would be needed laid bow to stern to keep a sailing ship upright when unladen and apparently even steel hulled ships were built relatively recently which used stone ballast. The pillars could be (depending on what they're made of i.e. steel, or ? less likely wood) supports for the deck above. I have a pic of the cross-section of a C17 ship which illustrates this. If pillars are stone then I think another explanation is needed.

wyrearchaeology · **Posted:** Mon Mar 16, 2009 3:09 pm

Dave,

I must admit the columns remind me a bit (and I emphasise the word 'bit' because the photographs aren't particularly clear) of the old column supports between the decks on the Isle of Man Steam Ferries. There were a few steamers went down on King's Scar (if you pardon the expression) in their time so, who knows?

frankjsmith · **Posted:** Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:38 pm

So, that's not Portus Setantiorum then, but what about that 'masonary structure' or wall that Thornber spoke of out beond Wyre Light. Maybe training walls were built in the channel when the docks were built, but Thornber predates them. I was talking to a friend about this subject, saying there's stories of some Roman structure supposed to be out there, when he said " There is. My mates from the diving club found some about twenty odd years ago"
Last Tuesday we came across this outcrop on the northern edge of North Wharfe by King Scar, just uncovered by the lowest tide. Am I just seeing what I want to see, or do they realy look too regular in size and shape to be rocks

Anyway, here's something real but delapidated, the Wyre Light, with passing Cormorant.

rossallbeach · **Posted:** Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:59 pm

Frank
Great photos of wyre light.
Phil

wyrearchaeology · **Posted:** Mon Mar 16, 2009 11:02 pm

Frank,

There have been plenty of sightings of walls and other structures out in the bay that ballast from shipwrecks and shored up channels don't account for. Whether there's another, more natural explanation for them than our missing 'Roman' portus I honestly don't know.

Personally, these days, I'm leaning towards the idea that Portus Setantiorum was the collective name for the Romano/British settlements using the river up to Skippool for sea trading and agriculture. But who knows? I could well be wrong. There might just be a Roman port hidden under the sand out there somewhere, just waiting for us to discover it. Hmm...I wonder if the committee would stretch to a couple of diving suits and an underwater camera...

I agree with Phil though...superb photos of Wyre Light...and of those rocks, or whatever they are. The sea actually looks blue on them.

swbirdy64 · **Joined:** Fri Jan 02, 2009 3:54 pm **Posts:** 43

Interesting pictures frank do you have a lat/long for them is that how you plot ariel positions? or is it another reference osgb perhaps anyway if you have position we can transfer to an admiralty chart to cross reference cheers Steve ps Great photos all of them

swbirdy64 · **Joined:** Fri Jan 02, 2009 3:54 pm **Posts:** 43

Sorry didnt make myself clear thats the position of the unknown outcrop cheers

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Portus Setantiorum

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