The discovery of a rare Elizabethan-era shipwreck on the coast of Romney Marsh is set to be featured on television.

Workers at a quarry near Dungeness made the dramatic discovery while dredging for building minerals in April.

The remains at Denge Quarry, which was around 300 metres away from the coast, initially baffled the working team from CEMEX who called in archaeological experts from Wessex Archaeology and the Kent County Council Heritage Conservation team.

Casper Johnson, a senior archaeologist at KCC, visited the quarry to examine the timbers.

He said it was immediately clear from the construction methods, size of timbers and lack of iron elements, that the remains were likely to date from the 17th or even 16th century.

Experts in marine heritage at Historic England agreed on the national importance of the findings and KCC worked with Wessex Archaeology to develop a detailed project design to secure funding for recording and interpretation.

More than 100 timbers from the ship's hull were recovered, with dendrochronological analysis (tree-ring dating), funded by Historic England, indicating the timbers were made of English oak and dated from 1558 to 1580.

After the recording, which involved dismantling the timbers and digital laser scanning, the timbers were placed back at the bottom of the quarry and covered with light silt to protect them for the future.

Now, the story of the rare ship will feature on Digging for Britain with presenter, Alice Roberts in the studio with Wessex Archaeology marine archaeologist, Andrea Hamel, and Antony Firth, head of marine heritage strategy at Historic England.

Professor Roberts said: “Who expects to find a historic shipwreck in a quarry?

“Luckily the workers recognised they’d stumbled on something quite extraordinary and called in the experts from Wessex Archaeology.

“This large piece of a hull is so well preserved, it’s giving us precious insights into Elizabethan shipbuilding.”

Although the ship is still unidentified, it represents an era when English vessels and ports played an important role with the Channel serving as a major route on Europe’s Atlantic seaboard.

Ms Hamel said: “To find a late 16th-century ship preserved in the sediment of a quarry was an unexpected but very welcome find indeed.

"The ship has the potential to tell us so much about a period where we have little surviving evidence of shipbuilding but yet was such a great period of change in ship construction and seafaring.”

Mr Firth said: “The remains of this ship are really significant, helping us to understand not only the vessel itself but the wider landscape of shipbuilding and trade in this dynamic period.

"CEMEX staff deserve our thanks for recognising that this unexpected discovery is something special and for seeking archaeological assistance.

“Historic England has been very pleased to support the emergency work by Kent County Council and Wessex Archaeology, and to see the results shared in the new season of Digging for Britain.”

Digging For Britain will air on BBC2 at 8pm tomorrow, Sunday January 1.