The incredible Victorian shipwreck that can still be seen at low tide on a Yorkshire beach
The Earl of Beaconsfield was run aground off a Yorkshire beach in the early hours of November 6 1887 - some say by a disgruntled member of crew - at the end of a long voyage to Calcutta.
Although there are thousands of wrecks underwater along Yorkshire's coast, the Earl of Beaconsfield is possibly unique.
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Hide AdThe 300-ft long ship ended up in fairly shallow water around a quarter of a mile out to sea - and on a daily basis at low water, the bows are revealed.
To a casual onlooker standing on the beach at Aldbrough, she looks like a cardboard cut out. But those lucky enough to see her close up from a boat can see how substantial she is.
While most of the iron ship lies underwater and can only be visited by divers, her bows emerge as the tide falls. Surreally, as water rises and falls within the spaces in the bow, she seems to breathe like a whale.
The stout metal ring which held the bowsprit in place can still be seen - as can the four cavities - called hawsepipes - that the anchor chain used to pass through.
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Hide AdDeck timbers survive and even a ladder into the chain locker - a space at the front of the bows where the anchor chain used to be stored - survives.
When she sank in 1887, she was under sail, at the end of a long journey from Calcutta. All 37 crew escaped
The Sheffield Daily Telegraph reported: "The four-masted sailing ship Earl of Beaconsfield bound from Calcutta to Hull with wheat and linseed, went ashore yesterday morning at Aldborough, on the Yorkshire coast
"She was still ashore this morning, and the crew remain on board engaged lightening her."
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Hide AdLocals still remember stories handed down over the generations about the failed efforts to save her.
She was been built to order for the Cunard line more than 20 years earlier in 1864 at a cost of £110,000, and named Cuba.
She was considered a "good, economical steamer and popular passenger carrier."
When sold to new owners D. Brown, of London in 1876, she was renamed the Earl of Beaconsfield in honour of Queen Victoria's favourite, the politician Benjamin Disraeli, and converted to a four-masted ship. Disraeli was Prime Minister at the time.
The distinctive figurehead, which was salvaged from the wreck, can be seen in Hull's Maritime Museum today.