HMS Invincible wreck saved with the help of fines from Libor scandal

One of Britain’s most important shipwrecks has been removed from a list of endangered sites after a multimillion-pound restoration project funded mostly by fines from the Libor scandal.

HMS Invincible, a 74-gun warship once captured by the French, ran aground in the Solent in 1758 and was found again in 1979. Its restoration, which has been labelled the biggest underwater rescue since the Mary Rose, was largely financed with £2 million from the fines levied on banks in 2012 for illegally altering a lending rate.

Hundreds of artefacts have been rescued from the 18th century warship and many will be shown at Chatham Historic Dockyard next summer. A section of the bow will be also be removed and displayed, The Times understands.

“The ship is still under threat from the physical conditions on a mobile sandbank,” said Dan Pascoe, the marine archaeologist who lead the conservation efforts. “But we’ve achieved so much in three years and rescued so much information that won’t now be lost.

“This is the best preserved mid-18th century warship in the UK and really tells the story of how sailors lived on board and how organised and disciplined the Royal Navy was at the time. It’s putting the banks’ money to good use.”

The wreck of the Invincible is one of 310 sites to be taken off the register by Historic England after conservation efforts. St Bride’s Church in Fleet Street, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and dating from 1671 has also been declared safe, as has a Sikh Gurdwara in Leeds, and one of the three remaining Eleanor Crosses in Hardingstone, Northampton. The crosses were built between 1291 and 1294 by Edward I in memory of his wife, Eleanor of Castile.

However, a further 247 sites have been added to the At Risk Register by the government heritage body this morning, including an unusual prefabricated Victorian lighthouse at Harwich in Essex, whose fabric is deteriorating rapidly, the oldest surviving timber tressle railway viaduct at Wickham Bishops, also in Essex, and the 120ft Beckford Tower, a folly built by the novelist William Beckford, near Bath.

Leeds Grand Quarter, a conservation area north of the city centre, and a former Napoleonic ammunition store and barracks in Northamptonshire are also in imminent danger. There are now 1,462 Grade I and II*-listed buildings, 2,089 archaelogical sites, 913 places of worship, 102 parks and gardens, 501 conservation areas, three battlefields and three protected wrecks at risk of neglect, decay or inappropriate change on the register.

“Our heritage needs to be saved and investing in heritage pays,” Duncan Wilson, the chief executive of Historic England, said. “But there’s more work to do. There are buildings still on the Heritage at Risk Register that can be rescued and can be brought back to beneficial use and generate an income, contributing to the local community and economy. These are the homes, shops, offices and cultural places of the future.”