49.945°N -6.276°WThe Wheel Wreck is the remains of a shipwreck lying in Crow sound off Little Ganinick in the Isles of Scilly.[1] The wreck site consists of a discrete mound of cargo that appears to consist of numerous sizes of different iron wheels, cogs, clack valves, tubes and boiler pipes. Lead scupper pipes and other small artefact material show the ship was once present, however, not much remains of this vessel today.[2] A Trotmann style anchor lies some 60m from the site, and this along with the cargo, date the site as sometime just after 1835. It has been published that this may be the wreck of the Padstow, however, being lost in 1804 this can not be so as neither boiler tubes or Trotmann anchors were invented back then. The wreck was discovered by local diver Todd Stevens in 2005 and investigated by the archaeological contractor for the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 in 2006. It still remains unidentified. However it is most likely to be a ship called the 'Plenty' which is recorded locally as having sank- "within 1 mile of the principal island" -in 1840.
The archaeological contractor has, however, identified that the cargo consists of tin-mining equipment and is presumed to have been from a foundry in Cornwall. This archaeological identification fortuitously came just after the designation of the Cornish tin mining areas as a World Heritage Site.[3] The cargo find is considered particularly important, because such mining equipment no longer exists on land.
The site was designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act on 5 April 2007. The wreck is a Protected Wreck managed by Historic England.