Below the Carpenters’ cabin, a man was found surrounded by tools including a sawhorse, stool, hammer, chisel, chopping block and his own tool-holder.

Was he one of the six carpenters of the Mary Rose?

Who was he?

He was likely in his mid-to-late 30s at the time of the sinking and around 1.72m (5ft 7in) tall.

Analysis of isotopes from his teeth reveal that he grew up in a much warmer climate than England and from an area of mainland Europe.

As some of the carpentry tools on board the Mary Rose were Spanish, did this carpenter come from Spain?

The Carpenter’s cabin and chests

The Carpenter had his own cabin, complete with a sliding door.

Inside, as well as the Carpenter’s chest and tools, there were two benches. While one is complete, with possible traces of bedding, the other is missing some planks. The Carpenter had also made a few home improvements, such as extending his cabin and cutting a window through the side of the ship, which could be closed in rough weather!

We found three chests in the cabin, two full of the Carpenter’s personal items and the other containing his tools. Only the wooden handles of the tools survived underwater, all the iron had rusted away.

The first chest is just an open box. This was full of his tools. It was used in the same way as a modern toolbox in a workshop. Inside it were bits of wood, lead, rulers, planes, a tinder box, a mallet, and lots of tool handles.

The second chest was far better built than the first one, with a lid and wooden handles. There is a hole at the front for a lock and the lid was held on with hinges. This was probably his clothes chest; we found traces of cloth and bits of braid and thread in it. There was also a small knife handle and two whetstones, for sharpening tools.

The last chest from the cabin was very fancy. The sides are fixed together with “dovetail” joints, it had a lock and ring-shaped hinges, and a little shelf inside. This chest was made of walnut wood. As well as a couple of small tools, it contained four pewter plates, silver coins and rings and a leather book cover.

The Carpenter’s tools

A lot of carpentry tools were found on the Mary Rose. While on land usually metal survives longer, under the sea metal rusts away, leaving the wooden handles. With the Mary Rose’s tools, you’ll have to use your imagination to fill in the missing blades!

By studying the marks on the wood, archaeologists can tell what sort of tools were used to build the ship.

The adze

The adze was a tool used for smoothing timbers. The blade would be long and flat; fixed to the thickest end of the handle, allowing the carpenter to chip away at timbers to shape them for ship repairs.

We’ve recreated the blade here, based on other ones that still exist.

Axes

Axes were used for both chopping wood and for carefully trimming timbers. The blade would be similar to axe heads today.

Planes

Planes were used for smoothing and shaping wood and came in all sorts of shapes and sizes. The large plane would be used for smoothing planks and beams, while small planes would be used for jobs like smoothing arrows. Planes haven’t really changed much in 450 years – apart from being made from metal!

This one was called a dolphin plane, for obvious reasons!

Brace and bit

The brace and bit was a Tudor hand-powered drill, used for drilling small holes. A ‘bit’ is the missing metal part, which was like a flat, sharp-edged metal spoon. To use it, you held the knob in one hand and twisted the brace round and round to make the bit act like a drill.

Ruler

A Tudor ruler may look similar to the ones we use today but they didn’t use centimetres, they used inches (2.54cm).

Mallet

A mallet is a type of wooden hammer. This would be used to hammer wooden rods, called trennels, which would expand when wet and not rust like metal nails, which would hold the ship’s timbers together.