18th century AD. A mixed group of artefacts recovered from the wreck of HMS Ramillies, comprising: a hollow-cast spherical shot case, 87 mm in diameter with wooden fuse exposed in the cracked exterior, for a 6-pounder gun; a solid 1/2-pounder ball for a swivel gun or canister shot for a large-bore cannon; a wooden drumstick with ovoid tip and short shoulder; a gun flint and other items in a mass of marine accretion; a 3/4 ball in a mass of marine accretion; a mixed group of small items including bone scales from a knife handle, a silver shoe buckle, six coins and bronze fittings. HMS Ramilles was an 84-gun ship of the line, launched in 1664 at Woolwich, London as HMS Royal Katherine, named after Catherine of Braganza. The name was changed in 1706, after a re-fit in Portsmouth to carry 90 gun, in commemoration of John Churchill's victory at the Battle of Ramillies the same year. The ship took part in several naval actions in the Second and Third Anglo-Dutch Wars, the War of the Grand Alliance and the Seven Years War. She was wrecked at Bolt Head, Plymouth, Devon on 15th February 1760, where only twenty sailors and one midshipman survived from the crew of 850, and subsequently broken up. A painting of the ship by Vale entitled The Royall Katherine command[e]d by John Earl of Mulgrave in the Second Dutch Warr is in the collection of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London (acquisition number BHC3606). 1.5 kg total, 18-88mm (3/4 - 3 1/2"). Recovered by the vendor from the undersea site, Devon, UK, 1974-6; with an information sheet. [22, No Reserve]

Mainly fine condition.