HMS Sedgemoor was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the English Royal Navy, launched at Chatham Dockyard in May 1687.[1] One of only three 50-gun ships to be built during James II's brief reign (all three completed with an unusual "square tuck" stern), she was first commissioned on 5 May 1687 under Captain David Lloyd, who was still in command (although actually ashore in Dover) when she was wrecked twenty months later.
All three ships ordered in 1682/3 (all were launched in 1687) were intended to carry 54 guns each - twenty-two 24-pounders on the lower deck, the same number of demi-culverins (9-pounders) on the upper deck, and ten demi-culverin drakes on the quarterdeck. However, each was completed with just 50 guns in wartime service; Sedgmoor actually carried twenty culverins (18-pounders) on the lower deck and thirty sakers (6-pounders) on the upper deck and quarterdeck.
The Sedgemoor was driven ashore and wrecked at South Foreland, in St Margaret's Bay, Dover, Kent on 2 January 1689. Some of her timbers were later salvaged and used in the building of a new Fourth Rate at Chatham.[2] [3] [4]