Archaeology Notes

Event ID 666096

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/666096

NO51NW 8003 5161 1657

N 56 20.35 W 2 46.97

NLO: St Andrews [name: NO 515 166]

St Andrews Bay [name centred NO 52 18].

28 April 1876, DUNCAN DUNBAR, 35 yrs old, of Scarborough, wooden schooner, 62 tons, 3 crew, Master and Owner D. Main, Monkwearmouth, departed Sunderland for Burghead, carrying coal, wind E. by S. 7, stranded entrance to St Andrew's Harbour.

Source: PP Abstracts Returns of Wrecks and Casualties on Coasts of the UK 1875 - 76 (1876 [C.1632] LXVII.191).

St Andrew's, 28th Apl., 3.48 p.m., the DUNCAN DUNBAR (schr.), of Newcastle, from Sunderland to Burghead, is ashore at St Andrew's: crew saved.

Source: Shipping Intelligence, LL, No. 19,350, London, Saturday April 29 1876.

St Andrew's, 29th Apl., the DUNCAN DUNBAR, Main, from Sunderland to Burghead, with coal, which grounded on the bar here, yesterday, was afterwards hauled into the harbour, where she sunk.

Source: Shipping Intelligence, LL, No. 19,352, London, Wednesday May 3 [1876].

NMRS, MS/829/69 (no. 2626).

The ribs of an abandoned vessel have long been visible at low water within the sloping W side of the upper area of the inner basin of St Andrews harbour (NO51NW 63.00), where they survive untouched by the modern activity of the lower harbour. The remains generally protrude less than 0.3m above the harbour silt, and occupy an area measuring about 11m by 5m.

These remains have been identified (by D A Spiers) as those of the Duncan Dunbar, a coastal collier schooner which suffered severe storm damage in St Andrews Bay on 27 April 1876, was towed in to St Andrews, sank in the lower harbour and was subsequently laid up in the upper harbour to be exploited as a source of timber. The carvel-built vessel was registered at Sunderland and had two masts and a lading of 63 tons of coal. Her dimensions have been estimated as: length 16-20m, beam 5-8m, and tonnage 50-80 tons.

This wreck is significant as exemplifing a typical small trading vessel of the 19th century and as representing the former trade of St Andrews harbour.

NMRS, MS/829/6, pp. 48-53.

(Classified as schooner: no cargo specified, but date of loss cited as May 1876). Duncan Dunbar: this vessel stranded (?)near St Andrews.

(Location of loss cited as N56 20.00 W2 45.00).

I G Whittaker 1998.

The equation (by D A Spiers) of these remains with the recorded loss of the Duncan Dunbar is tentatively accepted.

The location and condition of this wreck is consistent with the remains of a vessel laid up at the end of her life.

St Andrews Harbour (NO51NW 63.00) is at NO 51655 16607.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 22 February 2007.