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Summary

The San Pedro el Mayor, an Armada hospital ship, came ashore in Hope Cove in 1588.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses

• National Trust SMR: 100,576
• Old DCC SMR Ref: SX63NE/24
• Pastscape: 1062417
• Tide Project: 27/04/2020

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• WRECK (XVI - 1586 AD (Between) to 1588 AD (Between))

Full description

Elliot, E. A. S., 1908-1909, Historic Wrecks in Bigbury and Start Bays (Article in Serial). SDV142678.

In 1588 one of two hospital ships of the Spanish Armada, San Pedro el Mayor (St. Peter the Great), came ashore in Hope Cove. The crew were taken prisoners, and the ship plundered by the villagers before the authorities could take measures for securing the prize in the name of the queen. The cargo of drugs to the value of 6,000 ducats, which had been on board, was mostly spoiled by the water.

Larn, R., 1974, Devon Shipwrecks (Monograph). SDV741.

A 29 gun vessel of the Spanish Armada. Blown ashore near Hope Cove in October 1599. State papers of England and Spain suggest she was a hospital hulk. A contemporary letter puts her tonnage at 550 (equivalent of 581 modern tons).

Thackray, C., 1990, Archaeological Survey of the Salcombe Estuary: West (Bolt Head to Bolt Tail and Snapes Point) Devon, 32 (Report - Survey). SDV345519.

In 1588 one of two hospital ships of the Spanish Armada, San Pedro el Mayor (St Peter the Great), came ashore in Hope Cove. The crew were taken prisoners and the ship plundered by the villagers before the authorities could take measures for securing the prize in the name of the Queen. The cargo of drugs to the value 6000 ducats, was mostly spoiled by the water.

McDonald, K., 1992, The Bolt-Whole, 81 (Article in Serial). SDV147889.

Oldham, N., 2014, Bigbury Bay Project (Report - non-specific). SDV363848.

The Bigbury Bay project has evolved out of efforts to locate the remains of the Armada hospital ship, the San Pedro El Mayor reported to have been lost in Bigbury Bay in South Devon. The project involved using electronic equipment to locate iron objects on the seabed as well as searching the relevant beaches with metal detectors. Scuba divers from various British Sub Aqua clubs were then used to evaluate the targets found on the seabed. We managed to locate many of the inshore shipwrecks in Bigbury Bay and eliminate them from the search for the San Pedro. With the amount of shipwrecks in the area, it is still possible that she lies beneath the wreckage of some of these more modern wrecks such as the Empire Harry. This project documents the result of these searches and the history of the San Pedro crew after capture. A booklet on the San Pedro and the Armada has been produced and sorted out the conflicts identified in the various books on the subject. The project has located the inshore wrecks that still have some wreckage and found items previously not located such as the anchors from the HMS Ramillies.

The San Pedro el Mayor or St Peter the Great as it also known was a hospital ship of the Spanish Armada and carried 20 cannon, 30 sailors, and 100 soldiers. On July 21, 1588 she was with the rest of the Spanish Fleet off Plymouth and soon the wounded from those first skirmishes with Drake, Howard, Hawkins and Frobisher were transferred to her. Then, when everything went wrong and the Armada was forced into that dreadful circumnavigation of the British Isles, the San Pedro went too. At the end of October she was back where she had started, off Plymouth, but in terrible shape after being battered by gales almost all the way. There was now no-one aboard her strong enough to fight the winds and so a south-westerly gale blew her into Bigbury Bay and straight, they say, into Hope Cove. There, at the beginning of November 1588, her voyage of misery ended. And the looting and pillaging began.

An eye-witness of the time wrote: “The ship is not to be recovered; she lieth on a rock and full of water to her upper decks.” And another report: “The ship being run upon the rocks by the Spaniards, is now through the tempestuous weather broken in pieces and scattered on the seashore.” So even though there’s no intact wreck to find, you would think there would be something to see. But there is no trace. And surprisingly not even a shard of pottery from all the “drugs and pothecary stuff as came to 6000 ducats” which we know was aboard.

No evidence of the San Pedro’s final resting place has been found during this survey but research has unearthed some artefacts which may be from the ship. The first is some armour dug out of a wall and is now on display in the Cookworthy Museum in Kingsbridge. The second item is a plate last sold in a London auction.

The survey has at least eliminated areas within the bay where the San Pedro may have rested and it is hoped the search for the San Pedro will continue. It is possible the ship broke up and drifted on the tide so more searches off Bolt Tail will take place. A significant number of magnetic targets have been recorded in this area but unfortunately they lay in deep inaccessible gullies.

National Monuments Record, 2020, Pastscape (Website). SDV363416.

In 1588, a wreck of a Spanish hospital ship, a hulk which was part of the Spanish Armada (1583091), stranded near Hope Cove. San Pedro el Mayor had participated in the entire voyage of the Armada, from setting sail from Lisbon, following the fleet through the actions in the Channel (1583135 off the Eddystone, 1583299 off the Bill of Portland, 1583329 off the Isle of Wight), then circumnavigating the British Isles in an attempt to escape pursuing English warships and reach Cadiz. She was eventually wrecked at Hope Cove in October, three months after the battles through the Channel.

The ship was carrying over 200 sick and wounded men, mostly evacuated from other lost Armada vessels, and had a great quantity of drugs aboard for their treatment. Contemporary English sources refer to her as a 'Samaritan', referencing the parable of the Good Samaritan in the New Testament: she appears to be the earliest wreck of a ship explicitly identified as a hospital ship in English waters. The San Salvador, captured in the action, was similarly lost after the main Armada event (900416); the San Pedro el Mayor had embarked some of the wounded from the San Salvador. On the English side, the Ark Royal was finally lost as the Anne Royal in 1636 (1180031) while the Royal Prince (1033746), lost at the Four Days' Battle in 1666, is said to have been rebuilt out of the Victory, present at the Armada. Constructed of wood in 1586, the San Pedro Mayor was a sailing vessel, of Baltic origin.

Finds which could potentially have come from the wreck at Hope Cove including a travelling pewter communion cup from the date range 1550-1650, found by Steven George, although that object is currently believed to have come from a Portuguese ship which ran aground at Hope around 1649/50.

A plate was allegedly salvaged from the San Pedro and surfaced at auction in London (no reference given). Another local artefact with possible connections to the San Pedro is suggested as a Spanish helmet in the Cookworthy Museum (named in error here as the Cornworthy Museum) in Kingsbridge. The helmet was found built into a wall of the church tower at Aveton Gifford, which came to light when the church was bombed in 1942.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments: none recorded

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• EDV4935 - Archaeological Survey from Bolt Head to Bolt Tail and Snapes Point

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