Our museums and galleries house fascinating collections, from living bugs to The Beatles, fine art to photography, the Titanic to ancient Egypt.
Follow us online:
Our museums and galleries house fascinating collections, from living bugs to The Beatles, fine art to photography, the Titanic to ancient Egypt.
Shoes online exhibition
Accession number 1977.71.1971.73
Leather shoe heel made up of 5 layers, with marks of nails in the sole. The leather has degraded drastically due being submerged in salt water for a long period of time.
In the 17th century men wore shoes and mules with a square toe, often blocked and domed. An innovation in 1660 was the buckle to fasten a shoe.
Royal Yacht Mary was the very first royal yacht, built in Holland in 1660. She was presented to King Charles II by the Dutch East India Company to mark the occasion of his reinstatement to the English throne. She was a 50ft (15m) miniature man-of-war with a crew of 30, and cost £1,300 to build.
She was the principal Royal Yacht for a year before being put into general naval service, carrying VIPs between Dawpool or Holyhead and Dublin. She sank in March 1675 when she struck the Skerries off Anglesey. The wreck was finally discovered in 1971 and has been a protected wreck site since 1974.
Merseyside Maritime Museum has a collection of finds from wreck, salvaged during dives in the 1970s, including cannons, coins, and jewellery, personal items and pottery fragments.
Further information is available in the book 'Royal Yacht Mary - The Discovery of the First Royal Yacht' by Matthew Tanner, published in October 2008, which is available to buy from our online shop.