• References

The newest book makes reference to the ‘Lyme Bay Wrecks’ off Chesil beach. Like many elements in the Dragon series, these are based in historical truths.

Lyme Bay and Chesil beach have always been notorious amongst sailors for Chesil’s steep pebble bank and pounding waves. Quite a number of ship wrecks lie below these waves, including a set of six ships (Piedmont, Aeolus, Catherine, Golden Grove, Thomas and Venus) that were sunk November 18, 1795, during a hurricane. These vessels were part of a fleet of three hundred ships on their way to the West Indies to deal with a French uprising there.

An article from the period by Charlotte Smith noted:

On the Fifteenth of November, 1795, the fleet, under convoy of Admiral Christian’s squadron, sailed from St Helen’s. A more beautiful sight than it exhibited cannot be imagined, and those who had nothing to lament in leaving their native country, (some such, among great numbers, there must always be) enjoyed the spectacle as the most magnificent produced by the art of man, and as that which Englishmen have the greatest pride and pleasure in beholding. 

On the Sixteenth the wind continued favourable, and the fleet proceeded down Channel.   How dreadful the change that was to happen in eight-and-forty hours….

On Tuesday the Seventeenth, the fleet was off Portland, standing to the Westward, but the wind shifting, and blowing a strong gale at SSWest, the Admiral, doubting whether they could clear the Channel, threw out the signal for putting into Torbay … They could not, however, make the Bay,. the gale increased. and a thick fog came on:  the Admiral therefore thought it expedient to alter his course, and, about five o’clock in the afternoon, made the signal for standing out to sea. 

The six ships, … the Piedmont, Catharine, and Venus Transports, the Golden Grove, Thomas and Eolus merchant ships, beaten back to the Eastward, attempted to …reach some intermediate port, where they might be in safety till the fury of the wind, which now became every moment more and more violent, would allow them to proceed on their voyage. 

But the fog now gathered more heavily around them, mingling the sea with the sky in drear confusion.- They could distinguish nothing through the impenetrable gloom they could hear nothing but the roaring of the wind; yet, imagining they had searoom enough, they were not aware of the extreme peril they were in, … and were rapidly approaching the tremendous breakers that, … thunder with resistless violence against that fatal bank, of stones, which beginning at the village of Chisle, on … the coast of Dorset. …

Early in the morning. of the Eighteenth several Pilots, and other persons, were assembled on the Look-out *; from whence they saw too evidently the distress and danger of many of the Transports. …

Aeolus Merchant Ship …(and) the Golden Grove Merchant Ship, … were stranded on a part of the bank … almost in the very same spot where the Zenobia, a French frigate, went to pieces in the year 1763. 

But, however dreadful this scene was, that which passed four miles to the Westward was infinitely more terrible. 

For there, nearly opposite to the Village of Fleet and Chickerell, the Piedmont, Venus, and Catharine Transports were driven on the Bank; and very soon after the Thomas, a Merchant Ship bound for Lisbon, shared the same fate. …

The whole number of dead found on the beach was two hundred and thirty-four; so that, not withstanding the party employed was changed every day, so heavy and fatiguing was the duty, that it was not till the morning of the Twenty-third that all the soldiers and sailors (two hundred and eight) were deposited, as decently as could be done under such circumstances, in graves dug on the Fleet side of the stony beach, beyond the reach of sea, with a pile of stones raised on each to mark where they lay. 

Historians estimate that the final death toll from these wrecks reached over one thousand.

Divers Selwyn Williams and Les and Julia C. Kent, salvaged silver coins from the Piedmont in the early 1980s.

References

Crooks, David S. Shipe Wrecks. Sunken Treasure Books. 2008 Accessed July 15, 2023  http://www.sunkentreasurebooks.com/shipwrecks.htm

Smith, Charlotte. Narrative of the loss of the Catharine, Venus, and Piedmont … on wednesday the 18th of November last . The Loss of the Catharine, Venus, Piedmont, Thomas, Golden Grove and Ælous, 1795, on the Chesil Beach.  Accessed July 11, 2023 https://sites.rootsweb.com/~pbtyc/Shipwrecks/Catherine_1796/Wrecking_of_Catherine_1796.htm