⚓ Shipwrecks Map

Iona II 1864

Iona II: The New Saloon-Steamer Iona, belonging to Messers David Hutcheson and Company, of Glasgow - ILN 1863
Image: Edwin Weedon, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Marker: recorded wreck position (Steam era).

Key facts

NameIona IIWikidata label
Year lost1864English Wikipedia lead text (year following a loss verb, parsed)
EraSteam eraderived from year
Ship typepaddle steamerWikidata P31 instance of
Sea / oceanBristol ChannelNatural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon
Nearest coastEnglandofficial dataset
Position51.1848, -4.6477Historic England Protected Wreck Sites, listed latitude/longitude (OGL v3)
Protected WreckList entry 1000051Historic England
Designated1989-12-06Historic England
Restricted area0.78 haHistoric England
Grid referenceSS 15059 46171Historic England

About the wreck

The Iona II was a nineteenth-century American paddle steamer that sank off the English island of Lundy in 1864. The site was designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act on 6 December 1989. The wreck is a Protected Wreck managed by Historic England.

Diving & visiting

This is a designated Protected Wreck under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973. Under the Act, diving on or otherwise interfering with the wreck inside its restricted area requires a licence; see the Historic England list entry for details.

Iona II lies upright on the seabed. The forward and aft boilers, sections of a funnel, and the engine are all intact, as well as the hull up to the turn of the bilge. She is missing the majority of her funnels, the deckhouses, and the masts.

Salvage of the wreck was attempted shortly after the wrecking of the ship. The site was rediscovered during the search for the sunken MV Robert in 1976.

The site was assessed for designation by the Archaeological Diving Unit in 1989, and in 1990 Potters Bar Sub Aqua Club performed a photographic survey. The site was frequently surveyed between 1991 and 2012.

Location

  • Recorded position: 51.1848, -4.6477 (Historic England Protected Wreck Sites, listed latitude/longitude (OGL v3); may be approximate)
  • Sea / ocean: Bristol Channel
  • Nearest coast: England

Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.

OpenStreetMap

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Iona II (revision 1243334886), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “The wreck”, “Discovery and investigation”; condensed by selecting paragraphs; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.

Protected Wreck data © Historic England 2026. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).

Nearby wrecks

Browse more: UK & Ireland wrecks · wrecks off England · Bristol Channel · Steam era

Further reading