page_title: HMS Colossus (1787)
section_title: Modern discovery and protection
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Colossus (1787) / Modern discovery and protection
caption_attribution_description: English: In Tresco Abbey Gardens
context_page_description: HMS Colossus was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy. She was launched at Gravesend on 4 April 1787 and lost on 10 December 1798. During her years of service she participated in the Battle of Groix, the Battle of Cape St Vincent, and the Battle of the Nile. While carrying wounded from the latter, she was wrecked at the Isles of Scilly.
context_section_description: In the closing years of the 1960s, Roland Morris, a marine salver, began diving on the site, searching for the antiquities that Colossus had been transporting. In 1974, he discovered Colossus, as well as fragments from the collection of Sir William Hamilton which Colossus had been transporting. Many of the items found were reconstructed and are now displayed at the British Museum in London.
  In 2000, a report from amateur diver Todd Stevens alerted the Receiver of Wreck to the existence of further remains. As a result of this new discovery the Isles of Scilly Museum in Hugh Town was handed a vast collection of artefacts from this wreck for display. These new remains turned out to be the stern of the wreck, which held a large carving from the stern port quarter gallery. This carving was discovered by local diver Carmen Stevens and the wreck site was designated on 4 July 2001 under the Protection of Wrecks Act as a result of the find, meaning that diving or other interference within 300 metres of the site was not permitted without a licence.
  In August 2001 the Archaeological Diving Unit of the University of St Andrews obtained a survey licence and carried out a pre-disturbance survey of the site. The Colossus carving was recovered from the site in 2002 (as shown in a Time Team TV special in October 2002) and after conservation by the Mary Rose Trust, was returned to Scilly in 2010 to be placed on display in the Valhalla figurehead collection on Tresco Island. Further extensive licensed surveys were carried out by the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Archaeological Society from 2003 to 2005.
  Exploration of the wreck is ongoing year on year by Survey Licence Holder Todd Stevens and IMAG (The Islands Maritime Archaeological Group) who have produced an overall site plan of the whole wreck site. The Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Maritime Archaeology Society (CISMAS) has been routinely inspecting and recording the site since 2001. The CISMAS projects are funded and endorsed by Historic England (at the time called English Heritage). In May 2012 CISMAS embarked on an excavation of a portion of the stern of the wreck, focusing on recording finds related to the gun deck and on initiating a long-term reburial trial. 
  New wreck material was found in the vicinity of the stern in 2014, prompting further excavation work in 2015. This raised new questions about the wrecking process which was investigated in 2017, leading to a new wrecking theory. 
  In 2018 Historic England published the investigation and conservation of artefacts from HMS Colossus, thought to be a small concentration of personal items (50 buttons, a bone brush/ shoe horn and a textile fragment) recovered under a surface recovery license by the 2014 Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Maritime Archaeological Society (CISMAS) team. The objects were analysed and stabilised by the Historic England conservation lab, at Fort Cumberland, Portsmouth.
caption: Stern figure from Colossus in Tresco Abbey Gardens
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