| Core | 1997 | No |

Emergencies and World Disasters · Oct 18, 2026 · 22m

| Core | 1997 | No |

The thought of over a thousand tons of unexploded American bombs rusting in the Thames Estuary is at once absurd and terrifying - the masts of the SS Richard Montgomery still break the surface at low tide while its cargo sits in salt water in 2026; who is legally responsible for that ticking wreck? Could one medieval office, created under Edward II, really be in charge of every ounce of it?

In this episode, we follow the line of authority from a fourteenth-century office to a modern civil servant as the story explains what the Receiver of Wreck does, why royal fish matter…