Thursday, November 10th, 2005 marked the 115th anniversary of the loss of HMS Serpent, off the coast of Galicia in Spain, in 1890.

A brass plaque in Saint Mary’s commemorates the ship’s captain, Commander Harry Leith Ross, whose parents lived at Arnage Castle, north of Ellon.

The Serpent was a twin-screw cruiser, launched in 1887, and was the first vessel in the Royal Navy to be galvanized to protect metal plates from corrosion.

On her last voyage she sailed from Plymouth, bound for Sierra Leone, on November 8th. During the night of November 9th – 10th, three seamen from the Serpent swam ashore, exhausted, bruised and bleeding. They eventually told their story after walking several miles to the little town of Camarinas.

When the townspeople reached the place they saw wreckage coming ashore, but no trace was found of other survivors. During the following week bodies were washed ashore, including that of Commander Leith-Ross. The Admiralty sent HMS Lapwing and HMS Tyne to the area and they recovered more bodies. In all 147 men were drowned.

From the stories of the survivors and other investigations it was concluded that the ship had been lost through a navigational error. It was a bad night and there was a heavy sea running off the coast of Galicia. The Serpent was steering a course which should have taken her well clear of Cape Villano, notorious for its rocks, but a fault in the compass meant that she was more than ten miles off course and entered Punta Bay, north of Cape Villano. The officers were on the bridge and six men were on watch when the ship ran aground on the Boy Rock, while travelling at a speed of eight or nine knots. She remained stuck on the rock for a while and an attempt was made to launch a boat. However, the boat was immediately smashed to pieces. Waves were breaking over the deck and the remaining men were ordered into the rigging where, for the time being, they were comparatively safe. But eventually the Serpent slid off the rock and sank in deep water.

A memorial stands on the shore of Punta Bay and many of the men are buried in a graveyard there.