HMS Montagu

This huge battleship, the pride of the Royal Navy at the time, was built in Devonport, South Devon, in 1901, at a cost of just over £1 million (equivalent to £156 million today). Her time spent protecting Britannia’s domain came to an end just five years later when she ran aground off the south-west point of Lundy one foggy afternoon in May 1906. Despite immediately putting the engines hard astern, and later the assistance offered by four battleships, a cruiser and two tug boats, she was stuck fast on the rocks. There followed weeks spent lightening the ship, with specialised salvors removing her guns, parts of the superstructure and most of her armour plating, but still there was no moving her. By August of 1906 she was written off as a total wreck.

The whole episode was, of course, a considerable embarrassment to the Admiralty. The consequent courts martial of Captain Adair and Navigating Officer Lt. Dathan and the associated publicity this brought, didn’t help matters.

The wreck even became a tourist attraction, with excursion steamers from Ilfracombe and South Wales advertising views of the wreck on their itinerary. To allow access for salvage workers to reach the wreck more easily, a 150 m long aerial walkway from the adjacent clifftop to the upper deck was erected. A number of steps, now known as Montagu's Steps, were cut into the granite rock to assist with access to the start of the aerial walkway. 

In 2019, following a request during a meeting of the MPA’s Advisory Group two years earlier for the importance of the wreck to be more widely acknowledged, Historic England agreed the wreck was of sufficient importance for it to become a Scheduled Monument. It is understood this was the first wholly subtidal shipwreck to be designated a Scheduled Monument. Montagu's Steps were also granted Scheduled Monument status at the same time (List No. 1461607).

A short history of HMS Montagu

[Note that much of the following information is taken from the National Heritage List for England]

HMS Montagu was built in direct response to large French, Russian and German ship-building programmes prior to the First World War. The six ships in the heavily-armed Duncan class proved to be superior in their balance of speed, firepower, and armour; they were the fastest battleships in the Royal Navy when completed. The ship’s engines were amongst the largest and final such engines built for British battleships before steam turbine machinery was introduced. Montagu would have been outclassed by the Dreadnought battleships that began to appear at the end of 1906 which ushered in the new battleship era.

Between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the launch of the Dreadnought in 1906, the Royal Navy and navies generally moved from slow wooden warships reliant upon sail that fought at short range to fast, armoured all-steel warships powered by steam that fought at long range. The Montagu is an example of the wreck of a capital ship from an important phase in this transition, the pre-Dreadnought battleships, that sit between the experimental period of the Ironclads in the third quarter of the 19th century and the mature expression of the battleship concept, the Dreadnoughts, that contested the major fleet actions of the First World War.

On the afternoon of 29 May 1906, the five-year old Montagu anchored off Lundy during a Fleet exercise to test recently installed wireless telegraphic signalling apparatus. The Montagu was to communicate with the Isles of Scilly but the distance proved too great to enable suitable transmission and reception. In normal circumstances the Montagu would have steamed closer to Scilly to continue the trials but she had become enveloped in thick fog and given the risk of mid-channel collision the ship’s Captain decided to move closer to Lundy.

Soundings were taken as the battleship got under way and a strict lookout was kept as the Montagu crept closer towards the coast. At about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, the depth was given as seventeen fathoms (about 31 m), with the navigating officers believing they were four miles off Lundy. Suddenly there was a terrific crash and grinding of metal, and the Montagu shuddered to a halt. Unknown to all on board, the Montagu had just run aground on the Shutter Rock at the south-western corner of Lundy Island. The ship’s massive engines were quickly put hard astern shearing off both propellers which flooded several compartments and caused unstoppable leaks. The Montagu was stuck fast.

Owing to the thick fog and the location on the island where the ship had grounded, the lights from both of Lundy’s relatively new lighthouses (completed in 1896 and 1897) were obscured. In confirmation of the confusion surrounding where the Montagu had run aground, the Navigation Officer had assumed they were just south of Hartland Point lighthouse on the mainland. A small party was sent ashore to make contact with the lighthouse keepers with the instruction of sending a wireless message to the Admiralty. They made their way up the west side of Lundy (apparently not even being aware of the tower of the now-obsolete Old Light) before coming upon the lighthouse at the north end. When their knocking was answered by a surprised lighthouse keeper, the question was asked, “This is Hartland Light, isn’t it?”. The reply came back, “No sir. This is Lundy North Light.” “Are you sure?”, asked the officer. “Well, I ought to know what lighthouse I’m stationed at!”, came the retort. The wireless message was sent and the ensuing furore began.

In the following days the crew set to saving stores and transferring them to other ships and removing many of the valuable smaller guns and equipment, which would also help lighten the ship. However, it eventually became apparent that the Montagu was lost and attention turned to removing the remaining valuable equipment and stores. Between June and August 1906, the Montagu was further lightened through the removal of her 12-inch (305 mm) and 6-inch (152 mm) guns, heavy machinery, parts of her boilers, heavy fittings, and some of her bow armour. Several attempts to re-float the ship failed and an inspection conducted in October 1906 found that the action of the sea was driving the Montagu further ashore and bending and warping her hull so that her seams were beginning to open, her deck planking was coming apart, and her boat davits had collapsed.

In 1907, the Montagu was auctioned and sold for scrap (for a cost of £4,250) to the Syndicate of South Wales Adventurers. Basing their team on Lundy, they constructed a 500 ft (150 m) aerial walkway from what is now called the Montagu Steps (Schedule entry 1461607) on the cliffs onto the Chart House (the highest point of the bridge) so that salvage workers could access the Montagu. Working at low tide using divers and explosives, salvage continued into the autumn before being abandoned in October 1907, which marked the end of the main salvage effort, although it is reported that ‘desultory’ salvage by the Western Marine Salvage Company of Penzance continued for a further 15 years.

The wreck site today

The salvage work which took place following the grounding of HMS Montagu resulted in the removal of the ship's guns, condensers, pumps, armour plating and much non-ferrous metal. These salvage operations, together with some souvenir hunting and natural erosion of the remains, contributed to the swift deterioration of the wreck to a condition of ‘artefact scatter’. This consists mainly of metal frames and riveted armour plating as well as some gun mountings and 12 inch gun shells.

The remains lie on a bedrock and boulder seabed at 10 – 14 m depth, covered largely by a forest of kelp Laminaria hyperborea (up to 60% coverage). This kelp forest cover restricts a diver’s view to small areas of the whole site only.

A detailed archaeological survey of the site, undertaken by Wessex Archaeology with the help of diving volunteers from the charity Help for Heroes, was carried out in 2018.

The wreck remains a popular shallow water dive for visiting dive groups. For their own safety, divers are warned not to touch any ordnance they may come across on the seabed, which is still live.