The 1445 ton armed merchantman Lord Stewart was sunk by torpedo on 16 September 1918, 8 miles off the East Devon coast and only a few miles east of the Bretagne.
At the front of the superstructure are the remains of a steel cabin with companionways running either side. These are sheltered by raised steel sides of the hull, and the whole structure would have been topped by a wooden bridge and wheel house, now long since gone. A trawler had obviously lost its nets over the starboard side of the superstructure, though thankfully I found no signs of mono-filament nets.
Forward of the holds the focsle then rises above the main deck, the interior easily accessible through open doorways, or downwards between rotted deck planking from above. Inside it has collected a deep layer of silt and penetration could be a risky undertaking, even in an easily defined space such as this.
The anchor winch is intact with both anchor chains stretching forward and down through the hawse pipes. Over the side both anchors are in place, tight against the bows. Just a little way back a pair of small portholes look into the focsle.
The wreck is covered in anemones and clumps of hydroids, with some particularly fine examples along the tip of the bows.
The port side of the hull has completely collapsed where the torpedo struck at the bulkhead between the forward holds, the main deck sloping almost level with the seabed. With both forward holds flooding it is little surprise that the Lord Stewart went down within minutes of being hit.
Amidships, the engine room ventilation hatches have caved in and the area filled with debris. At the port side is the curved skeleton of a shelter above a hatch, most likely the main access to the engine room from above. Like the ventilators, the actual hatchway is blocked by debris.
The 4-bladed iron propeller is still in place, tips of the uppermost blades home to dense clumps of hydroids, and the remainder of the blades colonized by a mixture of dead men's fingers and anemones. The tips of the lower two blades are buried in the silt at 36 metres. The rudder is covered in purple anemones, intact save for a triangular bite missing from the back edge.
Ascending the stern to 26 metres, a steel box structure built on the deck is the platform for a 12-pounder gun. The gun itself has been salvaged, though the pintle remains. As with many projecting parts of the wreck it is covered in hydroids.