Some facts about the Newport Medieval Ship are certain - she was about 80ft (25m) long and ‘clinker built’, meaning that the edges of her planks overlapped.
However, the ship also offers some tantalising clues to her story. Coins and objects found on board suggest she traded with Portugal, and may even have been built there.
Archaeologists also think that Newport may only have been intended as an emergency stop. The hull was found resting on a timber cradle, a technique used to allow repairs to a ship’s sides and bottom.
If so, the repairs were never completed, and the medieval ship was allowed to sink into the thick Usk mud, which preserved her from rotting for the next five hundred years.
The Newport Medieval Ship