A Pre-World War 1 British battleship, HMS Montagu has been granted protection in England on September 20. The desecrated and abandoned battleship was added to the National Heritage List for England, which protects notable and culturally important buildings, monuments, wrecks, battlefields and world heritage sites in the country. This means that HMS Montagu will now be closely managed as a nationally important archaeological site, which will prohibit civilians from damaging or removing anything from the site.

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Archaeological expedition

A group of wounded veteran divers had recently been appointed to undertake a series of dives on the wreck site to map out exactly what remained of the ship. After this first full archaeological survey of the remains at the behest of the wounded veteran divers, the protected status has been granted to the wreckage. The veteran divers included Sacha Bamford, who served in the Royal British Navy as a warfare specialist between 2009 and 2012 and Andrew Phillips who served in the Gulf War. 

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Duncan-class Battleship

HMS Montagu was a Duncan-class battleship of the British Royal Navy, built to in response to rapid naval expansion in the build-up to the World War 1. Notably, to counter a group of fast Russian battleships in 1903. She was the fastest battleship in the world at that point of time but had a brief career. After serving for two years in the Mediterranean Fleet and a year at the Channel Fleet, she ran aground off Lundy Island, which is off the Devon coast, due to thick fog while conducting radio communication trials in secret. After repeated futile efforts at resurrection, the ship was broken up in situ and salvaged. As part of the salvage operations in 1907, steps were carved in the granite cliff face on the island and a suspension bridge was installed for access to the wreck. Both, the steps and the wreck have been added to the National Heritage List now.

The ship provides important insights into Pre-World War 1 Naval shipbuilding. HMS Montagu is a unique specimen of the transition of warship development between the 19th-century ironclads and the turbine-powered big gun British Dreadnought warships. 

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