Maritime record MWX1673 - Bank

`..during the fog of last Monday night ran ashore on Portland Bill, and was high and dry on the rocks at daylight on Tuesday morning. The casualty happened owing to the density of the fog, and the strong tidal currents. (2) Additional cargo is believed to have been railroad iron and firebricks. The hull was bought as a wreck by John Way. Eleven seamen from the wreck have been sent to their homes by Mr R Damon, of the Shipwrecked Mariners Society. There is a story told on Portland in Weston or Southwell, regarding the still-used expression `stick to the pork, Archie, which came about as a result of this wreck. As the BANK started to break up, barrels of pickled pork, provided for use by the crew, commenced to float clear. Samuel Archie, a local inhabitant, plunged into the sea after them, whilst his wife Molly kept shouting at him from the cliff: ` - stick to the pork Archie, never mind anything else, stick to the pork! (3)

The building date for this vessel is an estimate based on an average age at wrecking of twenty years. This average is derived from those vessels wrecked on the Dorset coast whose age at wrecking is known.

<1> Larn, Richard, 1992, United Kingdom shipwreck index, Extracted 23 November 1992 (Index). SWX5030.

<2> Various, Dorset County Chronicle, 30-JAN-1868 (Serial). SWX6464.

<3> Larn, R, and Larn, B, 1995, Shipwreck index of the British Isles, volume 1 : Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset Section 6, Dorset (AJ) Vol 1 (Monograph). SWX4541.

<4> Le Pard, G, 1995-2003, Dorset Coast Forum Maritime Archaeological Database, 697 (Digital archive). SWX8707.

<5> Cumming, E, The Dorset shipwreck and maritime incident directory, 12 (Monograph). SDO16406.

<6> National Record of the Historic Environment, 901100 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Sep 4 2023 6:11PM