St Nicholas Church. This church collapsed over the cliffs sometime in the late 15th Century (c.1480 A.D.) St Nicholas Church was the wealthiest in Dunwich and had the largest parish. The remains lies south of St Peter’s in the same trench between the inner and outer sand banks.
The ruins appear as scattered blocks of masonry in the multibeam images (a) and (b) lying in an area of the sea floor that is lower than the surrounding bed. The sidescan sonar data reveals some linear features (c) that may be wall fragments but may also be part of the underlying geology. The large image is a recent Klein 3900 sidescan image of the ruins collected by Wessex Archaeology in July 2009. This is the clearest image yet of the site.
Divers have confirmed the presence of fragments of wall. Two stones recovered from the site still have medieval mortar attached to them. This confirms their origin as part of a man-made structure. During the dive a large smooth block was recorded from the site which may be evidence of worked stone.
The site lies some 410 m east from the present (2000 AD) cliff line, at a depth of 8.4 metres. The exposed site covers an area of approximately 630 m2.
