The first recorded name for the island was in 1135, when it was referred to as St Michael's, after the chapel erected on it. At some later date the chapel was rededicated to St Nicholas and the island adopted the same name. From the latter part of the 16th century the island was occasionally referred to as Drake's Island after Sir Francis Drake, the English privateer who used Plymouth as his home port. Even well into the 19th century.
1747 - an artificial ruin which replaced a navigation obelisk. Built from Medieval stone from the churches of St. George and St. Lawrence, Stonehouse.