Tom Brown was a fisherman who in 1979, alongside a local marine archaeological group, discovered the wreck of the Stirling Castle, a 70-gun Royal Navy vessel built in 1679 and wrecked on the Goodwin Sands in 1703. He was a fisherman who operated along the Kent coast with his trawler Chilandra.
Here he describes discovering the wreck among a multitude of "fastenings" (seabed obstructions), the nature of the movement of the sands on the Goodwins which uncover and re-cover wrecks over time, and the historical practice of "huvelling" (plundering wrecked vessels and selling the spoils to visiting ships) which was a staple of the Deal boatmen's income from the 17th to the 19th Centuries.
Tom passed away shortly after this interview was conducted.
This is an interview conducted as part of the Goodwin Sands Oral History Project, a podcast series which speaks with those who have grown up within sight of the Sands, who make their living upon or around them, or who have been creatively inspired by the air of uncanny mystery they invoke. The Goodwin Sands are a pair of large sandbanks of the south-east Kent coast which offer both shelter and a dangerous hazard to unwary shipping or those caught in storms, and are the site of great historical importance and maritime archaeology.
This podcast project was undertaken as a response to an application to dredge the Goodwin Sands for aggregates and building materials to expand Dover Harbour, a proposition vehemently opposed by local residents and the Goodwin Sands Conservation Trust, who have created this podcast series. It is hoped that through hearing the voices of the people connected with the Sands their cultural status might be raised and further industrial interference might be avoided in the future.
Credits:
Presented and interview conducted by Joanna Thomson, co-founder of the Goodwin Sands Conservation Trust.
Production, editing, sound design and music by Ben Horner
For more about the Goodwin Sands Conservation Trust please see https://goodwinsands.org.uk/, and please see https://theaudiosphere.com for more on our producer.
