Anne Francis shipwreck padlock code cracked after 400 years
Experts have cracked the four-letter code, ANCE, on a brass padlock from the Anne Francis, a merchant ship wrecked off Port Talbot in 1583, and the lock is now on show at Wales' national museum.
How it was covered
- BBC One carried 93% of the airtime and concentrated on the full story, from the finder's 20-year struggle to the museum display.
- Channel 5 concentrated on a brief news-in-brief on the cracked code and 1999 find.
- BBC Two, Channel 4, GB News, ITV and Sky News: not found in tracked broadcasts.
- BBC News: covered online, not found on air.
The Full Story
A plain summary built from the channels that reported this story. Facts only one channel reported are attributed to it.
A brass padlock that went down with a merchant ship off the south Wales coast in 1583 has been opened, after experts worked out its four-letter code.
The Anne Francis was caught in a storm on its way back from Spain and ran aground beside what is now Port Talbot Steelworks. Some of its cargo was plundered and the rest sank into the sands.
In the late 1990s a metal detectorist named Peter found the closed lock beneath the beach. Channel 5 reported that the find was made in the sand at Port Talbot in 1999. The BBC reported that he also found gold and silver coins nearby.
The lock has four dials, each bearing six letters, which gives 1,296 possible four-letter combinations. Peter said he spent about 20 years trying to find the right one. "I did try and open it for the next 20 years. I tried and tried and tried, but to no avail," he said. Asked how he felt watching it finally open, he said it was "like unlocking the da Vinci code".
Despite centuries under the sand the lock was remarkably well preserved, and the museum that acquired the ship's treasures faced a dilemma: could the code be cracked without breaking it? BBC One West reported that a call went to Cardiff University, where researchers used micro CT scanning, similar to hospital imaging but built for much smaller objects, to see inside without forcing the dials. The sequence ANCE opened it.
Some questions remain. The lock was not attached to anything and its owner is unknown. It was probably made for a smallish chest, box or something similar, and what it held is not known.
The lock still works, but it is now treated as a museum artefact. It is the centrepiece of an exhibition of the Anne Francis treasures held by Amgueddfa Cymru, Wales' national museum, and will remain under lock and key. The BBC's Wales correspondent Hywel Griffith reported from Swansea.
Key Claims
Claims reported during this story's coverage, grouped by how many channels reported each one. Select a dot to see the source excerpt.
| Claim |  |  |
|---|---|---|
| Reported by all 2 channels | ||
| Experts cracked a four-letter code linked to a padlock from a ship that sank off the Welsh coast over 400 years ago. | Reported by BBC One | |
| The padlock was among treasures from the Anne Francis, which was caught in a storm while returning from Spain in 1583. | ||
| The padlock was found by a metal detectorist in sand at Port Talbot in 1999. | Reported by BBC One | |
| Only on one channel | ||
| The lock remained in working order but would be kept as a museum artefact under secure conditions. | Not reported by Channel 5 | Reported by BBC One |
| The lock's finder, Peter, spent about 20 years trying unsuccessfully to open it. | Not reported by Channel 5 | |
Channel Perspectives
What each channel focused on, with key quotes.
Channel 5 gave the story a single sentence in a packed lunchtime bulletin, treating it as a lighter item between drug-death statistics and the death of John Frieda. It carried the core facts, including a specific 1999 find date, but offered no explanation of how the code was cracked or what the lock was for.
- “Experts have cracked the four-letter code and a padlock from a ship which sunk off the Welsh coast, more than 400 years ago.”
- “A metal detectorist found the lock in the sand in Port Talbot in 1999.”
BBC One West made the lock the centrepiece of a full package, with its Wales correspondent reporting from Swansea and an interview with the finder, Peter. It explained the mechanics of the four-dial lock, the 1,296 possible combinations and the micro CT work at Cardiff University that produced the code ANCE, then closed on what remains unknown about the chest and its owner. The later evening bulletin named the code itself in a shorter version of the same report.
- “I did try and open it for the next 20 years. I tried and tried and tried, but to no avail.”
- “Well, for me, it's like unlocking the da Vinci code”
- “They were able to scan inside without forcing the dials and reveal the sequence ANCE to unlock the mystery.”
Broadcast Timeline
News broadcasts tracked for this story, in time order.