Brixham lighthouse, Iron Age fort and national nature reserve. Warships have been seen in Torbay from the days of the Vikings, up until 1944 when part of the D-Day fleet sailed from here. In 1588, Brixham watched Sir Francis Drake attacking the Spanish Armada after he had (so the legend goes) finished his game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe. Today in Brixham harbour, there is a full-sized replica of the ship, the "Golden Hind", in which Drake circumnavigated the globe; visitors can go on board. For centuries, ships going down the English Channel have come into Torbay to seek refuge from
Francis Pretty Drake's Plate hoax. Francis Pretty Francis Pretty was a Suffolk gentleman, diarist, sailor, and man-at-arms, who wrote detailed accounts of two separate circumnavigation of the globe, first with Sir Francis Drake (1577-1580) and later with Thomas Cavendish (1588). Due to the dubious legality of these expeditions, accounts were officially suppressed; the earliest unofficial accounts were published in Dutch by Emanuel van Meteren who purchased both diaries and mixed elements of one with the other. Excerpts of both diaries were also included in Richard Hakluyt's 1582 and 1589 treatises on British explorations of North America, before he published the Cavendish diary