Monthly Meetings

We meet at 2 pm on the fourth Tuesday of the month at the Congregational Church, Kilwardby St, Ashby.
There is normally a guest speaker or, in December, musical entertainment.
This is followed by tea, coffee and biscuits and a chance to meet and talk with other members.

Tea Rota and Reporting Groups

28th July – Kathy Powis – ‘The Mary Rose’

Kathy Powis is a volunteer for the Mary Rose Trust and gives talks all around the E Midlands about the famous Tudor warship.

She started by asking who had watched the raising of the ship in Oct 1982 before admitting she wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t until she happened to visit the museum that she became total absorbed by the ship and it’s history and hence became a volunteer.

When Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509 England had only two warships and Henry immediately ordered two new ships to be built. These two vessels would become the Mary Rose and Peter Pomegranate! The latter took its name from St Peter and from the pomegranate emblem of Katherine of Aragon’s badge, whom Henry had married the year before. When he divorced Katherine it was renamed just Peter.

Henry went on to order more ships which essentially founded the Royal Navy.

The Mary Rose was Henry’s favourite ship and had a successful service for many years before undergoing a major refit in 1536. This increased her size from 500 to 700 tons and added an extra tier of broadside guns. This may have made her top-heavy.

In July 1545 France attempted an invasion of England with 38,000 soldiers in 300 ships – larger than the Spanish Armada 43 years later. On July 19th the French entered the Solent but light winds becalmed both fleets. The French used rowing galleys to approach the English fleet but the wind picked up and English ships, including Mary Rose, were able to sail out to engage them.

Mary Rose is believed to have fired a starboard broadside and then attempted to turn to fire from the other side. At that moment a gust of wind caused the ship to heel over and because the gun ports of the recently fired guns were still open, water flooded in. From that moment she was doomed. As she heeled, guns, ammunition, supplies and other materials not fastened down would have moved to the starboard side making her unable to be righted. She sank in one and a half minutes. All but 35 of the 500 crew drowned.

The casualty rate was made far worse because of the practise of fixing heavy netting over the deck to prevent the enemy from boarding a ship in close quarters fighting. It also trapped almost all its crew beneath it.

Despite the loss of Mary Rose the French were routed and they returned to France.

Attempts were made to raise her over the next couple of years but it proved impossible and it wasn’t until 1982 that it was possible to recover the starboard side of the ship which had been covered in silt. The port side and much of both ends had been eaten away by small crustaceans called Gribbles.

After more than 40 years of preservation and restoration, the Mary Rose is now housed in an award winning building in Portsmouth docks which allow people to walk alongside the 3 decks of the surviving starboard side whilst artefacts recovered from multiple dives are displayed in context. There are guns, longbows, shoes, plates, nit combs!, rosaries, even the skeleton of the ship’s dog and a truly amazing collection of ephemera. It is considered to be the greatest underwater archaeological recovery in the world. I could write much more but space does not allow.

I suggest that you try to visit the museum if you possibly can to see and learn so much more than I can retell here of this fascinating story.