EXPERTS say the discovery of a wooden scaffold buried beneath the Newport ship, reported in the Argus yesterday, can only add to the vessel's significance.

The 500-year-old ship was discovered in the River Usk mud in July when work began on Newport's new riverside theatre and arts centre.

And after a successful public campaign to save it, the ship's oak timbers are to be put on display when the arts centre is completed as part of a £3.5 million project.

Now, the discovery of scaffolding has fuelled the long-held local theory that there may be more ships beneath the mud.

Newport council says it is too early to say what effect the new discovery will have on the theatre and arts centre.

Archaeologists are continuing to excavate and will assess in the near future whether there is a need for the dig to be widened.

Archaeologist Kate Howell, who is working on the dig, said of the scaffold: "It's some sort of cradle structure but we haven't really begun to examine it yet.

"It's made of logs that seem to form some kind of superstructure beneath the vessel on the starboard side.

"It suggests the ship was deliberately placed - we can say that with a high degree of certainty - and you wouldn't go to that trouble if there wasn't going to be some work done.

"We may now be able to have dendochronology - examining tree rings - carried out on the structure to find out how old it is and get some idea of when the ship was brought in, so we would know when it last sailed.

"It's possible there was more than one ship worked on here. You wouldn't rule it out by any means.

"This ship is one of four similar to be found in Northern Europe, but I'm not aware of anything else like this being found.

"The timbers will be examined, recorded and sampled but I don't know if they will be preserved or not. But it's certainly another layer to the story."

Charles Ferris, who organised the Save Our Ship campaign, said: "This exciting development will show we have a ship-building heritage going back for hundreds of years.

"We hope this will be excavated in full and shown in place."

A spokeswoman for Newport council said: "It's important that a full assessment of this discovery's significance and extent is carried out.

"We're waiting for feedback from the team on site."