The Dungeness Wreck: A Report on a Carvel-Built Tudor Ship from Kent, England

The 2022 discovery of a 16th-century shipwreck at Cemex’s Denge Quarry, Kent, offers a significant addition to the limited archaeological corpus of English-built carvel vessels from the Tudor period. This article presents the findings from the recording and assessment of the wreck, drawing primarily on the grey literature report produced as part of the work funded by Historic England, managed by Kent County Council and undertaken by Wessex Archaeology. The analyses reveal the carvel-built vessel’s timber was sourced from South-East England and East Anglia, suggesting a possible construction date as early as the mid-1530 s and significant modification after 1561. Crucially, the vessel exhibits a pattern of highly distinctive construction features and carpentry details that are remarkably similar to those of the Gresham Ship (circa c. 1574). This article argues that these shared characteristics provide compelling evidence for a distinct regional shipbuilding tradition in South-East England, offering a clear counterpoint to other well-known examples of English shipbuilding from the period.