East of East Looe is the little hamlet of Crafthole, with two crosses, one known locally as "Stump Cross," a fine specimen of a plain Latin cross with chamfered angles, and another of earlier date with a broken top. This bay, which stretches from Looe to Penlee, was once a valley filled with trees, but, as Florence of Worcester says, "The sea comes out upon the shore and buries towns and men very many, oxen and sheep innumerable."
The Armada
It is a quiet strip of coast, yet it was here between Rame Head and the Dodman, that on a breezy Sunday morning the Spaniards of the Armada first caught sight of the English fleet under Lord Howard of Effingham, and the volunteer flotilla that was led by Francis Drake. The Spanish plan was to divide fleet from flotilla, but as the light English boats could sail closer to the wind and were generally more easy to handle, it met with little success. The Spanish admiral was soon to discover that his little enemy's guns could carry further than his own, thus enabling the English to remain out of reach and yet pour in their raking broadsides. The light winds blew from the east, and the opposing navies fired and drifted and fired again, passing the Rame, passing Plymouth, and drifting up the coast. The engagement lasted till late on that Sunday afternoon, and later still the Capitana, first fruits of the demoralising tactics of the English, was towed into Dartmouth harbour.
"Keepe then the sea, about in special,
Which of England is the towne wall,
Keepe then the sea that is the wall of England,
And then is England kept by Goddes hand...."
In other words: "God helps those who help themselves."
Sheviock
Above Crafthole lies Sheviock, on one of the creeks of the Lynher, with a good fourteenth-century church. The Dawneys were lords of Sheviock, and we have it from Carew that while the husband was building the church, his more practical wife was erecting a barn. When they came to compare accounts it was found that the lady's expenditure had exceeded her lord's by three half-pence, "and so it might well fall, for it is a great barn and a very little church."
The Eddystone
Henry VII., when Earl of Richmond, is said to have landed near Rame Head, and seeing that he had in his train such energetic Cornishmen as Sir Richard Edgcumbe and Sir Hugh Trevanion, men who could help him to a good few of their relatives and retainers, no doubt he was well advised. From the headland can be seen the Eddystone, which is nine miles south. This ridge of rocks is a mile long, but has only one small rock appearing above the water and has for ages been the terror of seamen. The first lighthouse was built in 1699, and four years later was swept away by a storm. A second, built in 1708, was burnt in 1755. The third, built by Smeaton in 1759, resisted the wind and weather for over a hundred years. The rocks on which it was built were then found to be giving way, and it was removed to Plymouth Hoe, and a new and higher lighthouse built on another part of the ridge.