A large iron anchor has been set-up in the grounds of Great Hoaten Farmhouse, apparently on New Years Day in 1887.
The anchor is 5.27m in length along its shank and 3.24m across, from fluke-tip to fluke-tip. Its arms are 2-2.1m in length, 0.2m in width and are tipped with spade-like flukes that are 1.14m long, 0.8m wide and 50mm thick. The crown (where the shank and arms join) is angular (c. 125 degrees). The shank is round in cross-section, c. 220mm diameter, in its lower, un-degraded part, but generally square (200mm wide x 160mm deep) for its upper 0.9m. The stock is missing, but would have been wooden, seated on the shank by a pair of short lugs, protruding a maximum of 60mm and set 0.53m from the top end of the shank. A large ring (0.77m in diamater and with a round cross-section of 85mm), is set through a hole (diameter 120mm) at the top of the shank, which itself is roughly rounded.
The origin of the anchor is unknown, with local stories relating it to the Spanish Armada, or to a Royal Navy ship-of-the-line in perhaps the 18th century. In either case its seems to have been abandoned at Hoaten while being transported from the west coast of Pembrokeshire to Milford Haven, before being set up on display at Great Hoaten Farmhouse in the late 19th-century.
The form of the anchor is that of an Admiralty Pattern anchor with clear parallels to large sailing warships from the mid/late-18th century. In particular, the angular, rather than rounded crown, is noted by Lavery (2004: 140) as being characteristic of British anchors prior to 1815. This is reinforced by clear parallels in the form of the anchor that can be found in an Admiralty plan of c.1800 (ZAZ 6698). Prior to that, there is little difference in form as far back as at least the 1670s when similar anchors were supplied to the Royal Navy as part of the 1677 shipbuilding programme (see Endsor, 2009: 79-80). With this in mind, the anchor is more likely to date from the late 17th or 18th century and have an origin in the story of the Royal Navy ship, rather than the Spanish Armada.
The anchor was originally noted by the RCAHMW in 1925 (Pembrokeshire Inventory No. 1052, p. 374) including the origin-story of the Spanish Armada. It was revisited by the RCAHMW in September 2024 to undertaken detailed recording via a photogrammetry survey (link below)
Sources Include:
Dyfed Archaeological Trust HER PRN 12144: https://archwilio.org.uk/her/chi3/report/page.php?watprn=DAT12144
Endsor, R., 2009. The Restoration Warship. London: Conway Maritime Press.
Lavery, B., 2004. "Anchors". In The Line of Battle: The Sailing Warship 1650-1840, R. Gardiner (ed.) pp 139-140. London: Conway Maritime Press.
RCAHMW, 1925. Inventory VII: County of Pembroke.
RCAHMW, Photogrammetry Survey, 18/09/2024: https://skfb.ly/pqYBK
ZAZ6698 "Bower and Kedge Anchors with tables of weights and anchor allocations for 74-gun Ships" National Maritime Museum Greenwich https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-86489
J. Whitewright, RCAHMW, September 2024.