Unseen monsters of the deep

Earlier this summer it was announced that the Royal warship of King James II (at the time the Duke of York), HMS Gloucester, had been found off the coast of Norfolk. It sank in 1682 after striking a sandbank and went down within an hour of running aground. Initially discovered in 2007, it has taken 15 years to confirm HMS Gloucester’s identity and protect the site. As a confirmed wreck, she joins a list of thousands of others around the shores of the UK and more than three million worldwide.

These wrecks stretch back through centuries of maritime history and since sinking beneath the waves, they have begun their second life thanks to the forces of nature and the sea. Upon reaching the seabed a ship becomes structure and habitat in what can often be large, featureless expanses of rock, gravel and sand. As nature gradually claims the ship, it becomes colonised by a huge range of organisms, slowly