The Newport Medieval Ship Project
Submitting Institution
University of Wales, Trinity Saint DavidUnit of Assessment
Geography, Environmental Studies and ArchaeologySummary Impact Type
CulturalResearch Subject Area(s)
History and Archaeology: Archaeology, Curatorial and Related Studies
Summary of the impact
The Newport Ship Project is a collaborative project with the University
of Wales Trinity Saint David as the academic lead, working with the
Newport Museum and Heritage Service (Newport City Council) and the Friends
of the Newport Ship, to protect, understand and display the most
substantial medieval ship found in Britain in modern times. Impacts are
demonstrated through a) significant developments in professional practice
in the museum sector and b) in community engagement and educational
outreach spheres which have seen substantial public collaboration and
learning clustered around a major heritage project.
Underpinning research
The Newport Ship Project began in 2002 with the ship's unanticipated
discovery during urban redevelopment on the riverside of the Usk in
Newport, South-East Wales. Nigel Nayling (UWTSD) acted as an
archaeological specialist overseeing the excavation of the ship on behalf
of the archaeological contractors and the local authority, Newport City
Council. Following a vociferous local campaign led by the Save Our Ship
group, complemented by national representations, funding was secured for
the ship's recovery, study, conservation, and eventual display. The ship
was recorded, dismantled, and recovered to passive storage in 2002/3. The
challenge of documenting and analysing the ship has been met through a
sustained collaborative effort involving Nayling as archaeological
consultant, and a project team at Newport Museum working together for over
a decade. The scale of the endeavour, requiring the detailed recording of
thousands of ship's timbers and associated artefacts, favoured the use of
innovative digital methods of recording which have been developed and
refined from approaches first utilised at the Viking Ship Museum in
Roskilde, Denmark, but which are now becoming widespread in the field of
nautical archaeology.
Nayling has worked as a nautical archaeologist and dendrochronologist in
the Severn Estuary region since 1991, including the excavation,
post-excavation analysis, and publication of a thirteenth-century clinker
built boat, the Magor Pill medieval wreck (excavated 1998, published 2000,
conserved timbers in store at National Museum Wales), and a late
Romano-Celtic boat from Barland's Farm (excavated 1994, published 2004,
conserved timbers in store at Newport Ship Centre). He joined the
University of Wales Lampeter (latterly UWTSD) in 1998. Recognition of his
expertise led to his involvement in the Newport Ship excavations as a
nautical specialist able to advise on the significance of the find
(including providing tree-ring dating) and oversee the ship's recording,
dismantling and recovery in 2002/3. Research activity, leading to
subsequent publications, which underpins the impacts was generated as
Nayling undertook an assessment of different recording methods in 2004
leading to the recommendation of the use of innovative digital recording
techniques. Between 2004 and 2008 the digital recording of all the ship's
timbers was carried out by a team including Nayling as consultant and
dendrochronologist, providing oversight on the quality of the data being
generated. In parallel with this, initial assessments of other materials
including environmental remains and artefact groups were made. Through a
substantial grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (2006-8), the project
team was significantly enlarged and dissemination and outreach activities
promoted.
Between 2008 and 2011 research shifted towards developing techniques
which realised the full potential of the digital data collected in meeting
the research goal of understanding the original hull form of the ship — a
process achieved through new combinations of digital solid modelling,
rapid proto-typing manufacture and assembly of a scale physical model.
Most recently this research strand has returned to the digital environment
to develop minimum and capital reconstructions of the ship to deliver a
nuanced understanding of its sailing characteristics and cargo-carrying
capacity. Synthesis of a wide range of palaeo-environmental and
artefactual studies with this ship specific research has led to a number
of recent research outputs and delivery of the single largest digital
archive ever submitted to the Archaeological Data Service, numbering some
12,200 files totalling 124 Gb of data.
References to the research
• Nayling, N. 2000 The Magor Pill medieval wreck. CBA
Research Report 115
• Nayling, N. and McGrail, S. 2004 The Barland's Farm Romano-Celtic
Boat CBA Research Report 138
• Jones, T. and Nayling, N., 2011 ShipShape: Creating a 3D Solid Model of
the Newport Medieval Ship, in Castro, F. and Thomas, L. (eds) Advisory
Council on Underwater Archaeology: Underwater Archaeology Proceedings
2011, 54-60
• Soe, S., Eyers, D., Nayling, N., and Jones, T., 2012 Additive
Manufacturing for Archaeological Reconstruction of a Medieval Ship, Rapid
Prototyping Journal 18.6
• Nayling, N. and Jones, T., 2012, Three-dimensional Recording and Hull
Form Modelling of the Newport Medieval Ship (Wales, UK) in N. Günsenin
(ed), Between Continents Proceedings of the 12th International
Symposium on Boat and Ship Archaeology
• Nayling, N. and Jones, T. The Newport Medieval Ship Archive.
Archaeological Data Service Archive arch-1563-1. doi: 10.5284/1020898
• Nayling, N. and Jones, T. 2013 The Newport Medieval Ship, Wales, United
Kingdom, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology.
• Nayling, N. and Susperregi, J., 2013 Iberian Dendrochronology and the
Newport Medieval Ship, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology
Evidence of the quality. Grants and peer review:
• Newport City Council (N Nayling included as archaeological consultant)
The Newport Ship Recording Project. The Heritage Lottery Fund,
HG-05-00350. £799500. 2006 - 2008.
• N Nayling (UWTSD with NCC) ShipShape: solid modelling and
visualisation of the Newport Medieval Ship from 3D digital record.
AHRC, AH/G000905/1. £76,446.00. October 2008 — March 2011
• N Nayling (UWTSD with Birmingham University and NCC) ShipShape 3D
Communities. AHRC Museums, Libraries and Archives Follow-on Funding
Scheme, AH/J500794/1. £32,217. March 2011 — March 2012
• N Nayling (Co-investigator in project led by Newcastle University)
Intellectual Property and Informed Consent: Partnerships and
Participation. AHRC Museums, Libraries and Archives Follow-on
Funding Scheme. £32,000. February 2011 — September 2011
• N Nayling (Co-investigator in project led by Durham University) Tackling
ethical issues and dilemmas in community-based participatory research: a
practical resource. AHRC, Research Grant, Follow on Fund,
AH/J006645/1. £38,445. March 2012 — September 2012
• Newport Museum and Heritage Service (Nayling as specialist advisor). Digitally
reconstructing
the Newport Medieval Ship: 3D designs and dynamic visualisations for
recreating the original hull form and sailing characteristics.
CyMAL: Museum Archives and Libraries Wales, Innovation and Development
Grant. £21,000. May 2012 — March 2013
• N Nayling (AHRC Fellowship) The Newport Medieval Ship: Publication,
Representation and Dissemination. AHRC Fellowship £122,000. October
2012 — July 2013
Details of the impact
Overview: community based heritage conservation. The research on
the Newport Ship from its discovery and recording in the ground through to
its recovery and post-excavation study, to ongoing conservation, has been
throughout an act of co-production between the project consultant, Nigel
Nayling, and the Newport Museum and Heritage Service (NMHS) in
collaboration with the Friends of the Newport Ship (FoNS). This has
generated a number of impacts, most notably a major act of heritage
conservation of international significance; the generation of key
underpinning research and interpretative material which is enabling the
public to learn about their heritage and enjoy the process of learning;
research methodologies and working methods which have supported a wide
range of people to take an active part in and make decisions about
heritage; and leadership to ensure that the project created opportunities
for people to gain new or increased skills. Throughout each stage Nayling
and NMHS have ensured significant interaction and support which has
enabled different stakeholder groups to learn about their heritage through
the integration of volunteers, school work experience, and student
placements, into the work on the ship.
Conserving Heritage: The major act of conservation which Nayling's
work has centred on has seen several established and ongoing impacts on
the city's heritage and tourist assets. The initial development for
example has seen a major new heritage facility and tourist asset in the
establishment of the Newport Ship Centre. This continues to be the focus
for a significant degree of volunteer involvement which has since 2008
seen some 298 volunteers contributing 5068 hours to the project, including
school children on work experience, difficult to reach youth groups,
university conservation students on work placements, and a wide range of
Newport City citizens. The centre is now a recognised centre of excellence
for curation, recording and analysis of archaeological waterlogged wood
assemblages, through its unique combination of expertise, facilities and
leading digital data capture and manipulation tools. As such, the Centre
has been able to provide both facilities and specialist services to a
range of clients including museum services, archaeological units, and
other university projects.
Community engagement: Community engagement has been characteristic
of this research from the outset when a group of predominantly local
people established the Save Our Ship campaign. This campaign succeeded in
securing the recovery of the ship and has evolved into the Friends of the
Newport Ship (FoNS). A strong ethos of knowledge transfer has
characterised the relationship between the research team and the FoNS,
with research findings being transmitted to the friends for dissemination
to their members and the wider public through, regular SOS newsletters and
a substantial guidebook first published in 2010 and now in its second
edition. The guidebook was written by members of the Friends using data
and illustrations provided by the research team to ensure an accessible
style focused on the interests of a wide audience. Friends have also
received training to act as guides (using the guidebook) at the Centre's
Open Days, which have become an established part of the outreach calendar
for the ship project. These provide free public access to the research and
the team. Data capture methods for these activities have varied over the
period 2008-2013 but NMHS figures for the Newport Ship Centre for this
period can be summarised for years 2008, 2011, 2012 and 2013 (partial) as
8118 visitors to the Newport Ship centre, including Open Days (usage
statistics Newport Medieval Ship Project provided by NMHS). Education and
outreach has likewise been undertaken by the NMHS ship team which
continues to disseminate current research and use the ship project as a
tool in outreach. This has been a key success in the project's impact
strategy, with some 10,807 schoolchildren engaged with the Newport Ship
through school outreach since 2008. These educational outreach activities
encompass school visits to the Centre, workshops held in Newport Museum
and workshops held in schools. A web-based Key Stage 2 history resource
complements this schools outreach. Some 3172 attendees have likewise been
recorded at public lectures (based on the underpinning research) given by
ship team members. The NMHS has recently moved beyond the use of its
website to provide information on the project to establish a dynamic
Facebook page and a YouTube video channel to expand awareness of the
project. In addition to the centre, public engagement with this heritage
has been enhanced by an exhibition on the ship at the Newport Museum and
Art Gallery which has significantly enhanced visitor experience since 2007
(visitor figures for which are not currently publicly available). This
exhibition continues to provide the public with free access to information
on the ship and its place in the history of Newport and the Severn
Estuary.
Professional Conservation Practice. In addition to impacts on
community engagement with their heritage and the subsequent up-skilling of
volunteers, Nayling's research and collaboration with NMHS has generated
new methods to meet the very significant challenges of excavating
internationally important ship and boat finds, contributing to the
definition of best practice by professional bodies and associations in the
international field of maritime conservation practices, not only within
the academic field, but also with heritage agencies and museums. The lack
of appropriate standards for responding to archaeological discoveries of
ship-remains at the time of the ship's discovery made excavation of the
Newport Ship problematic and was a major driver in the production of the
Institute of Archaeologists' The standard and guidance for nautical
archaeological recording and reconstruction. Nayling used his
research experience on the ship project to deliver significant input in
delivery of this standard which was formally adopted as Institute for
Archaeologists approved practice at the Annual General Meeting of the
Institute held on 15 October 2008. As an invited member of the Medieval
Working Group, Nayling also contributed towards delivery of the Maritime
and Marine Historic Environment Research Framework for England.
Nayling's work continues to promote best practice in digital approaches
in nautical archaeology, extending his contributions to changes in
professional standards, guidelines and training. In this Nayling is a
founding member of the Faro Rhino Archaeological User Group (FRAUG) which
has been developing innovative digital approaches to archaeological ship
documentation, analysis and dissemination. Meetings of this group have
taken place at the Viking Ship Museum, Roskilde, Denmark; the Vasa Museum,
Stockholm, Sweden; the University of Southern Denmark, Esbjerg; Newport
Ship Centre and the Kogge Project, Antwerp, Belgium. The 6th Annual
meeting and workshop of the network was held at the Newport Ship Centre in
2012 offering workshops and training throughout the week in advance of the
formal meeting which is traditionally chaired each year by Nayling.
Members include practitioners from a wide range of organisations, such as
state heritage agencies (e.g. the National Service for Cultural Heritage,
RCE Lelystad in the Netherlands), national maritime museums (e.g.
Norwegian Maritime Museum, Oslo), universities (e.g. University of
Connecticut, USA) and ship project groups (e.g. Yenikapa, Istanbul,
Turkey). The next meeting of the group will be hosted by the Traditional
Boats of Ireland Project in Baltimore, Ireland (May 2014) with workshops
on boatbuilding, traditional sailing, laser scanning and hull form
reconstruction. Training opportunities for members are aimed at developing
their practice, and subsequent deployment of these methods have been seen
at numerous ship projects in the museum sector including the Bremen Cog,
the Barcode Project, Norway; Aber Wrac'h, France; and Roman Barges of the
Rhine, Netherlands.
Ethical aspects of the co-production or community-based participatory
research model employed on the Newport Ship project have likewise been
explored through AHRC Connected Community projects leading to academic
publication and also production in 2012 of guidance for researchers
working with museums: Earning Legitimacy: Participation, Intellectual
Property and Informed Consent. (http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/74491/4/EarningLegIPICJuly2012.pdf.)
Sources to corroborate the impact
i) Museums Officer, Newport Museums and Heritage Service.
ii) Vice-Chair, Friends of the Newport Ship.
iii) News coverage: search for 'Newport Ship' at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/wales
iv) Press Coverage: search for 'Newport Medieval Ship' at
http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/
v) Friends of Newport Ship:http://newportship.org/
vi) NMHS Outreach:
vii) Maritime and Marine Historic Environment Research Framework
for England http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/mhe research_eh_ 2011/index.cfm
viii) Faro Rhino Archaeological User Group
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Faro-Rhino-Archaeological-User-Group-FRAUG/156359647780449