Diver believes he’s solved 150 year mystery after discovering 330ft shipwreck
A video shows a 150-year-old shipwreck which was discovered 330ft deep in the Celtic Sea.
A diver believes he has solved a 150 year mystery after he discovered the wreck of a steamship that disappeared in 1869.
Dom Robinson, 53, came across the wreck 330ft deep in the Celtic Sea, on a journey from Plymouth to Ireland. The steamship, found in September last year, included a cargo of bricks and crockery, which he believed to be around 150 years old. And after months of research, Dom believes the ship belonged to the Anglo-Greek Steam Navigation and Trading Company, due to some plates found around it.
Dom said: "When we started coming up on the wreck, I knew it was going to be something brilliant. There were all sorts of interesting things all over the place. When we got to the wreck, it was absolutely covered in bricks. We'd narrowed it down to a few ships that belonged to the steamship company, thanks to the crockery that was on it."
Dom, who shares his shipwreck adventures on social media under the name Deep Wreck Diver, asked his followers for any information on the mysterious ship.
One keen researcher, who trawled through newspaper archives, has revealed that the ship may be the SS The Greek - a trading ship that had set sail from Glasgow in 1896, and was en route to Rotterdam, but disappeared on its way.
Dom said: "I put it out to followers on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram, and people came back with all sorts of stuff. One guy, Sebastian, got into the newspaper archives and managed to crack the case. He found an article from 1870 talking about one of the ships we were looking for, sailing from the Clyde in Scotland to the Netherlands. We had the crockery, the size and shape of the vessel, the bricks, and the route - it brought everything together."
Dom says that while he can't be completely certain that the wreck is the SS The Greek, he believes he has solved the mystery.
He said: "I love solving shipwreck mysteries - there are so many off our shores. It's around 150 years that that ship's been missing - it's nice to have that sense that it's now solved and sorted. I'm really glad to have identified it."
Dom said it was also important to recognise this was the final resting place of the ship's 23 crew members.
He said: "We should never forget that these weren't just ships. These were people's homes and their livelihood. There will have been families. But we now know where it is."