Hidden Britain AtlasOpen the map
All places › Pirates
Pirate

Cruel Coppinger

Welcombe, on the Devon–Cornwall border

A Danish smuggler who came out of a storm and ruled the coast by terror.

Legend says that in a great storm in the 1790s, a stranger swam ashore from a wrecked ship and leapt onto a farmer's horse behind his daughter. He was Coppinger, a Dane, who married the girl and became the leader of a ruthless gang of smugglers and wreckers.

Read the full story, see it on the map, get directions and find what else is nearby in the free Hidden Britain Atlas map.

Open Cruel Coppinger on the mapReport a sighting here
When
Legend, 1790s
Where
50.9300, -4.5300
Group
Pirates

Visiting

Welcombe Mouth is a wild cove reached by a lane near Hartland.

Cover of Blood and Gold by Cale Mills
Read the full story in the book

Blood and Gold

Sixteen true stories of mutiny, mercy, treasure and the gallows from the Golden Age of Piracy: Henry Every, Bartholomew “Black Bart” Roberts, Edward England, Howell Davis, Christopher Moody, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Charles Vane, Benjamin Hornigold, Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet, Israel Hands, Calico Jack, Edward Low, Captain William Kidd and Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy. Where the record is uncertain, the book says so.

Buy on AmazonAll books by Cale Mills

Nearby mysteries