HMS Warspite - Navis / Neptun Models and Memorabilia.

Like many British naval history enthusiasts, I have a particular fondness for the battleship HMS Warspite because of its long and remarkable career. A career that could so easily have ended prematurely at Jutland in 1916 but instead went right through to bombardment duty 28 years later off Normandy and Walcheren via Narvik, Calabria and Matapan and eventually ended on the rocks off Prussia Cove before the ship was finally broken up a short tow away, in the shadow of Saint Michael's Mount.

There are already many accounts of that career so I won't try to make my own version. A good online summary is here, including photos of the grounding and final breaking up just off the beach at Marazion..

Of course Warspite was heavily reconstructed between the World Wars, radically changing her profile from a classic WW1 dreadnought through the addition of a massive tower bridge, single funnel and midships hanger. More significant if less obvious improvements were made to the propulsion, armour, anti-torpedo bulges, AA armament and the addition of radar. Before and after versions are available in 1/1250 from Navis/Neptun and here are my copies. Navis NM 101 N representing her in 1915 and Neptun N1104b for the 1943 version.

Some of the wood from the wreck was used to make souvenirs and some of those, in turn, have been recycled into smaller items. Knowing by fondness for the ship, my wife bought be a pair of cufflinks made from such salvaged wood. 

I have enjoyed many family holidays in Cornwall around the Lizard and Mounts Bay so was aware of a number of Warspite-related relics and memorials in that area.

On the top terrace of the castle at Saint Michael's Mount, there is a garden bench made from teak recovered from the wreck. Apparently there is another similar bench in Penzance.

According to Wikipedia, "The remains of the masts lie in the yard at Porthenalls House, Prussia Cove and one portion was erected on a headland, overlooking Prussia Cove." Aside from that the house is actually called Porth-en-Alls, presumably just a small portion of the masts - the property isn't that big and I can't see any battleship masts on Google Maps! You can rent Porth-en-Alls House as a holiday let and the location is something special so maybe I'll go and do an on-site check sometime. 

The section on the headland is rather more modest but photos are easily found online.

There is a memorial stone in Marazion, set up by the sea wall and apparently a display in the Marazion museum but that has been closed on my last two visits.

I assumed there was nothing left in the sea from either the original grounding or the final breaking up but then I found an intriguing mention on Cornwall Online, in the scuba diving section that: "From Penzance it is but a short distance to St Michael's Mount and the remains of the battleship HMS Warspite". http://www.cornwall-online.co.uk/waterside/diving.htm 

There are a number of photos online, showing Warspite being broken up, which place it in two positions: between the Great Hogus rocks and St. Michael's Mount and to the west side of the rocks.

After a lot of searching and asking around on diving forums, last year I found somebody who, some years previously, had dived on Warspite's remains in the (relatively) deep water channel between the Great Hogus and the harbour wall of St. Michael's Mount. He told me there were sections of boiler and a short section of ladder remaining, mostly buried in the sand and obscured by marine growth. It was all in poor condition and might not last that much longer. 

I'm not a diver but I enjoy snorkelling and it seemed likely that the remains would be visible from the surface as they were only about 5m deep at low tide. I just needed a calm period of weather to get relatively clear water and a low tide. That didn't happen last year but I was there again last week (July 2022) and we had a good run of very calm weather followed by a low tide only about 0.8m above datum so I headed over to Marazion. I swam out past the S. end of the Great Hogus rocks and searched back and forth between there and the harbour wall. The sea bed in this area is sandy but, after a while, I found an area of seaweed and 'rocks' which, on closer inspection, appeared to be the remains of a metal structure covered in marine growth. It looked like a long 'U' shape, 1.5-2 m across with the sides curving slightly inwards. This was, I think, about 40m south of the Great Hogus. There was no sign of the ladder and, as it was about 5 m deep there was no way I was going to dive down to poke around. Although visibility was quite good, there was enough debris in the water to confuse my camera's autofocus so, as there was no manual option, the photos were rather blurry, and much less distinct than it is in real life, but I think you can make out the 'U' shape clearly enough.

Although there was nothing that would enable a positive identification, it is in the right sort of area and there was nothing else other than sandy sea-bed so I'm counting this as having seen the last remaining parts of HMS Warspite in the sea and exited the water a happy man.