The National Maritime Museum's collection of manuscripts is the largest and most important dedicated archive for the study of maritime history in the world. The collection occupies over four linear miles of shelf space and covers all aspects of British seafaring history from the 14th to the 20th centuries.

As well as being an unrivalled research resource, the archive collections hold many hidden narratives which unfold through the objects themselves. These web pages are designed to tell some of these stories. Four miles of collections means a lot of stories so we can only give you a taste - we've started with one, but others will join it in time.

As we are interested in the tales that come out of the archive, these pages are structured around the narrative itself. You can browse episodically or by using the interactive map and timeline at the tops of the pages. Of course - the digitised objects are available either from the chronicle of the story or to browse on their own.

We hope that these pages give you an idea of the amazing stories in our archive, and will inspire you to see what other stories you can find.

Keepthinking ltd developed these pages from a concept by the National Maritime Museum.