November
Our speaker for 28 November was Dr Dominic Fontana, FRGS, FRA who gave a thoroughly researched and comprehensive presentation, ‘The Battle of The Solent-19 July 1545 & The Mary Rose’. Having spent some 30 years in the research of the Mary Rose and academia, he unravelled the threat from the French who were in The Solent and gave us all the most likely explanation of why the Mary Rose sunk. She had been holed early in the battle and slowly shipped water, as she heeled during a turn open gunports reached the water and she was overwhelmed by the ingress of seawater and sank. The entire battle lasted 9 hours which caused the French to retire. A most interesting and well illustrated lecture.