Plymouth Sound - Notable Events

Notable Events

  • The English Fleet assembled in 1355: by Edward of Woodstock, the Black Prince, Duke of Cornwall departed to the Battle of Poitiers (1356)
  • Catherine of Aragon 2 October 1501: arrived and was escorted to London for her marriage to Henry VIII of England
  • The Pelican 15 November 1577: departed on Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation
  • The Mayflower 1620, bearing the Pilgrim Fathers
  • The first recorded submarine fatality in history occurred in the Sound in June 1774, when a carpenter named John Day perished north of Drake's Island while testing a wooden diving chamber attached to the sloop Maria.
  • Following his surrender to Captain Frederick Maitland of HMS Bellerophon off Rochefort in 1815, Napoleon was taken to Plymouth Sound where he remained on board, 26 July – 4 August, while his future was decided. This event caused a local and national sensation as thousands took to the water; several paintings in London's National Maritime Museum document the event, such as the one shown here.
  • On 27 December 1831, HMS Beagle set off from anchorage in the Barn Pool, under Mount Edgecumbe on the west side of Plymouth Sound, on her second survey voyage, captained by Robert FitzRoy with Charles Darwin on board.

The Sound has been the site of a number of aircraft crashes and shipwrecks:

  • Die Fraumetta Catharina von Flensburg, a 53 ton brigantine, sank near Drake's Island in December 1786.
  • The P&O ship Nepaul sank on the Shagstone in December 1890.
  • A Short Sunderland flying boat crashed in March 1942 between the Breakwater Fort and the breakwater lighthouse killing five passengers.
  • In February 1943, a Lancaster bomber hit the cable of a barrage balloon and crashed without survivors on the return from a raid on the U-boat pens at Lorient.
  • The Glen Strathallan luxury steam yacht was scuttled near the Shagstone as a site for scuba diving. This ship's triple expansion steam engine is now on display in the Science Museum in London.

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