Here’s a thought to ponder as we do the dishes, or wait for the bus in the rain.
If we were lucky enough to have our own private island — like Leonardo DiCaprio, or Richard Branson, or Johnny Depp — what would we want on it?
Maybe a yellow sandy beach with a tumble of seaweed-clad rocks and a couple of resident seals?
Or a labyrinth of underground tunnels that may — or may not — stretch under the sea to both Devon and Cornwall.
Or perhaps a matching set of 25-ton muzzle-loading cannons designed to keep out the French, and abandoned 16th century army barracks now occupied by seagulls, cormorants, owls and bats.
Drake’s Island, steeped in history and gleaming in the sun today in the Plymouth Sound
Jane Fryer visited Drake’s Island – named after the explorer, Sir Francis Drake, who set sail from here in 1577 to circumnavigate the globe
Well anyway, if all of that is your thing, how very fortunate.
Because Drake’s Island, steeped in history and gleaming in the sun today in the Plymouth Sound, has the lot.
And, as luck would have it, the island — named after the explorer, Sir Francis Drake, who set sail from here in 1577 to circumnavigate the globe — is up for sale. Vendors Carter Jonas will not say a price, but are inviting offers.
For your money, you’ll get a six-and-a-half acre slice of history, 30,000 square feet of abandoned grade II-listed military buildings, and a lot of underground tunnels and cellars. Planning permission to turn the whole lot into a luxury tourist destination is included, too — plans that could set you back around £30 million.
And as I step off the ferry from Plymouth and stride along the rickety landing stage with the owner Morgan Phillips, I’m pretty much won over already — by the pristine sea, swirling with seaweed. The thick, bouncy turf growing on the volcanic tuff and lava. The wild lupins, blossoming blackberries and buttercups. Even the sign saying ‘KEEP OUT’ gets my heart racing a bit.
It’s like an Enid Blyton Famous Five adventure meets History Today.
No wonder Morgan, a former Navy engineer who bought it in 2019 for £6 million, loves it so. ‘I always feel different when I’ve been here. It’s special,’ says Morgan, who now works in security systems and is kindly showing me around today. ‘You’ll see what I mean when we leave. You’re touched by it. It has something extra.’
But if you’re after total solitude, this might not be the island for you. Because, according to a stream of very excitable mediums, psychics and the crew from Time Team, the island comes with a hidden extra — not mentioned in the glossy sale particulars — its own resident community of military ghosts.
The most notable of whom, Morgan tells me, is Regimental Sergeant Major Mark Beresford, who served here in the 1850s and haunts the lower magazines — deep tunnels where the munitions were kept — even though he did not actually die here. (Some 25 others did perish here when it was a military prison in the 17th century.)
‘He is apparently extremely nice and not at all scary, but he is quite a stickler,’ says Morgan. ‘So I do tend to shout out, ‘Good morning, Sergeant Major!’ when I enter the lower level of the cellars, just to be courteous.’
The others — thought to be spirits of long-dead squaddies — are rather less honourable.
Jane meets the island’s current owner – Morgan Phillips, a former Navy engineer who bought the island in 2019 for £6 million
Drake’s Island was used as a prison by Charles II in the 1600s and played a crucial role in defending Plymouth from French and Spanish invasions
‘We’ve had a few women saying they feel odd things when they’re on tours of the lower cellars,’ says Morgan. ‘Apparently they like to nuzzle and stroke their necks.’
Blimey. But perhaps ghosts — or tall tales of ghosts — are par for the course when you buy an island with a history so rich it’s hard to pick out the best bits.
The fact that it was used as a prison by Charles II in the 1600s and played a crucial role in defending Plymouth from French and Spanish invasions. That Queen Victoria liked to sketch it. That a young JFK Jr learned to sail here in 1971. Or that it was a key defence against the Nazis in World War II.
Some locals — including Chris, the island’s muscular maintenance man, who sports a giant tattoo of Pocahontas on his left bicep and has a passionate interest in the Knights Templar Catholic military order — believe it goes back way further.
‘Plymouth Sound is where Britain began!’ he says, gushing about ley-lines and Templar churches and druids.
‘This is one of the most spiritual places on the world.’
Maybe, but Morgan has had rather more practical plans for what he refers to a lot as the ‘jewel in the Plymouth Sound’. Ever since 2019 when, much to his wife’s horror, he snapped it up. ‘We disagreed for quite a while,’ he says. ‘Though now she’s a tour guide here.’
In his Navy days, he used to sail past Drake’s Island and lose himself in its mystery and history. Suddenly it was his and he had big plans. And, more importantly, planning permission and the funds. Today, as we stand on the rickety, rusting landing stage, he is pink and wistful as he talks me through his dreams.
A 43-bedroom hotel with luxury accommodation, swimming pool, cafe, wellness centre — what private island worth its salt doesn’t have a wellness centre? — event space and a shiny glass elevator in place of the smashed-up old boathouse.
There’d be tidal turbines on the seabed producing energy. Perhaps even a handy helipad on ‘Little Drake’, the rocky outcrop at one end of the island.
It sounds amazing, would cost £22 million and take between three and five years to complete.
The picturesque island was also a key defence against the Nazis in World War II
If you buy the island you’ll get a six-and-a-half acre slice of history, 30,000 square feet of abandoned grade II-listed military buildings, and a lot of underground tunnels and cellars
But then along came the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and sky-rocketing interest rates, and Morgan’s backers pulled out.
As a result, he’s had to become very entrepreneurial — running history tours, nature tours, yoga tours, ghost tours, any sort of tour he can think of — but the £500,000 all this generates each year barely covers costs.
He must be gutted to have had to put it up for sale — and is still praying that a last-minute investor will swoop in to help him realise his big vision.
But according to Ali Rana, who is handling the sale for Carter Jonas, there is already huge interest, locally and internationally. And they all have their own plans, from a private home, to a yacht club, to reviving Morgan’s dream of a hotel.
Morgan won’t be the first owner to have tried — and failed — to develop Drake’s Island.
The previous owner, businessman Dan McCauley, bought it in 1996 and talked endlessly about his ambitions for the place.
In 2017, after a seven-year battle with the local authorities, he finally got planning permission. But then he fell ill, the grass
grew 3 ft high and birds were nesting in all the buildings.
Before that, between 1967 and 1989, it operated as Drake’s Island Adventure Centre. The visitors slept in Nissen huts and I would have given my left arm to have had an adventure here.
So would a lot of locals. Because for decades, although they could see it very clearly, barely half a mile across the Sound, they were not allowed to come.
‘Though of course we did,’ says Chris, who grew up in Plymouth. ‘I was always slipping over here.’ He wasn’t the only one.
In 1957 a bunch of schoolboys ‘invaded’ the island, claiming it for Plymouth. They were arrested by the guard, who gave them bacon sandwiches and got them back to the city in time for double maths.
And in 2005, a group of anti-nuclear campaigners briefly set up a peace camp and declared the island a nuclear-free state.
When Morgan bought it, he was determined it should be open to all.
So he organised an open day in March 2020, in aid of the local hospice.
‘We advertised it on the Monday — for a hundred-odd visitors — and on the Wednesday, the website crashed because we’d had 535,000 applications.’
It was also Morgan who got film crews in — for adverts, photo shoots, an Indian film company.
And the ghosthunters. At first, just for a bit of fun, but then the Time Team crew went down in the deep magazines and had a bit of a hair-raising night.
Footsteps going nowhere in the darkness. A video of the ghostly Regimental Sergeant Major in the dark, ‘like a bear in a cloth cap, huge and hairy and all lit up,’ says Morgan.
As we head down to have a look, Morgan warns the photographer: ‘Watch out, the ghosts will play with your kit.’
At first, the tunnel network is a bit overwhelming.
Damply cool and claustrophobically dark in the central open rooms, where Morgan tells us: ‘This would be an events area — we tried it out with a little jazz ensemble and the acoustics are wonderful,’ he says. ‘Or the wellness centre.’
And though no one nuzzles my neck or tickles me, I do feel relieved to emerge back into the sunshine.
And, I should add that, oddly, my digital recorder went haywire and recorded just a strange hiss for the whole time we were down there.
So we stride off towards the east end of the island, to look for whales, dolphins and seals.
And wonder who will buy this extraordinary place and whether they’ll realise Morgan’s dreams.
Even if I had the £30-odd million needed, it wouldn’t be me.
But I would come back in a shot, though I’m not sure I’d rush to the spa down in the basement.
