Plymouth is located within Plymouth local authority area. Historically it formed part of Roborough Hundred. It falls within Plymouth Deanery for ecclesiastical purposes. The Deaneries are used to arrange the typescript Church Notes of B.F.Cresswell which are held in the Westcountry Studies Library. The population was 16378 in 1801 107636 in 1901 241000 in 1991. Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. In the valuation of 1334 it was assessed at £34/12/08. The lay subsidy of 1524 valued the community at £85/08/06. In 1641/2 1440 adult males signed the Protestation returns. It is recorded as a borough from 1276 and was incorporated in 1439. It had parliamentary representation from 1442-date. A turnpike was established in 1758. The community had a grammar school from 1573. Absorbed Devonport and East Stonehouse in 1914. A market is recorded from 1822.

You can look for other material on the community by using the place search on the main local studies database. Further historical information is also available on the Genuki website.

Maps: The image below is of the Plymouth area on Donn's one inch to the mile survey of 1765.

On the County Series Ordnance Survey mapping the area is to be found on 1:2,500 sheet 123/8+ Six inch (1:10560) sheet 123NE,SW,SE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SX470560. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SX45NE+, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 108, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 201. Geological sheet 348 also covers the area.

Illustrations: The image below is of Plymouth as included in the Library's Etched on Devon's memory website. Other images can be searched for on the local studies catalogue.

Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:

PLYMOUTH is a city of some 209,000 people, by far the largest town in Devon, extending for about 4 m. from W. to E. across the peninsula between the estuaries of Tamar and Plym. To the S. lies the Sound, a magnificent deep-water anchorage, and one of the finest harbour views in Europe. Inland, the city boundaries reach Tamerton Lake to the NW. and include the rural parish of Egg Buckland on the NE., taking in altogether an area of 13,136 acres, or rather more than 20 sq. miles. The city is essentially a union of the three towns of Plymouth on the E., Devonport on the W., and Stonehouse pendent centres. Few cities, if any, in Britain have such a superb site, with the blue edge of Dartmoor in full view to the NE., the Cornish hills and the noble estuary of the Tamar to the W., and the Sound in front enclosed between fine headlands, and dotted with shipping.

The old town of Plymouth lay in a hollow behind a limestone cliff-wall, which stretched from the Tamar to the Plym and continued beyond the Plym in the heights of Oreston and Mount between them. Though the three towns had coalesced long before, they were not united under one authority-the borough of Plymouth-until 1914. In 1928 the borough was made a city by royal charter, and is now headed by a lord mayor.

The topography of Plymouth is complex, with its numerous inlets of tidal water, the undulating and broken character of the peninsula itself, and the fact of its growth from three inde-Batten. The central section of this limestone wall forms to-day the famous Hoe. Three deep inlets breached the wall-Sutton Pool, Mill Bay (with Sour Pool), and Stonehouse Creek, of which the last two originally extended much farther inland than they do to-day. Around Sutton Pool, or more precisely a little NW. of it, in the region of Old Town Street to-day, lay the Saxon germ of this great city-the hamlet of Sutton or " South tun." Where Devonport now stands was a bird-haunted waste of marsh and mud along the Tamar mouth. The sketch-map shows the elements of Plymouth topography. The hamlet of Sutton was part of a royal estate in Saxon times. Much of this royal estate (the manors of Sutton, King's Tamerton, and Maker) was granted away by Henry I to the Valletorts, who in turn gave part of the manor of Sutton to Plympton Priory, not far away. The monastic half of the manor became known as Sutton Prior; to the N. and W. of it lay Sutton Valletort (or Vautort).

Until the latter part of the 12th century, Sutton Prior remained a small agricultural and fishing village. With the acquisition of the provinces of SW. France by Henry II, the harbour was increasingly used by military and commercial shipping, though always over-shadowed by Dartmouth which had a more sheltered anchorage. The great defect of Plymouth Sound was that it lay wide open to the prevailing SW. winds, and it could become a prison for sailing ships.

The priors of Plympton created a borough on the shores of Sutton Pool, probably about the middle of the 13th century, (The prior at Plympton was granted a market and fair at Sutton in 1253. A borough may have been set up forthwith. There was certainly one by 1275 (Hundred Rolls) and the name Plymouth began to be used of the port proper. By the late 13th century the harbour was being used increasingly as a place of assembly for military expeditions and for ships engaged in the French wine trade, and Plymouth became second only to Exeter in population and wealth. (D.S., 223-4.)

In its early days, Plymouth was held back by the close control exercised over the borough by the priors of Plympton. After a prolonged struggle the town shook itself free of its maternal parent and was incorporated by act of parliament in 1439. By this charter the three Suttons (Sutton Prior, Sutton Vautort, and Sutton Ralf) were amalgamated, and a mayor and corporation set up for the enlarged borough.

Although Plymouth merchants were considerable men in the early 16th century --old William Hawkins, the father of Sir John, being the most notable--the town did not achieve any national importance until the latter part of the century when it became the principal naval base in the war against Spain. It became a clearing-house for prizes taken at sea, a starting point for voyages of exploration and colonisation, and a port of assembly for the navy. The choice of Plymouth, rather than Dartmouth, as the naval base was largely due to Sir Francis Drake, whose home port was Plymouth, and to Sir John Hawkins, a native of the town, who was treasurer of the navy 1578-89, and comptroller 1589-95. It was from Plymouth that Drake sailed on 19 July 1588 to attack and defeat the Armada, and it was on Plymouth Hoe that he played his famous game of bowls. This traditional story is almost certainly true. It first appeared in print in 1624, within living memory of the event;" and there are certain other details as to tides and winds which make the story highly probable.

Plymouth rose with the Spanish menace and fell away with its removal in the early 17th century. The population nearly doubled in the war town of 1580-1600. We hear of new streets being built all round Sutton Pool at this date. "Sperke's new streete " named after a big merchant (and called New Street to-day) is first recorded in 1584; Treville Street is named after the Elizabethan merchant Richard Treville; Southside Street appears in 1591, Looe Street in 1588. This is now the oldest and most historic part of the town, where several 16th and 17th century merchants' houses remain. The most notable example is No. 32 New Street, which dates from c.1590. It now belongs to the Plymouth corporation and is open for inspection. New Street itself retains much of its old character, narrow and winding, and paved with granite cobbles.

As the Spanish threat to England lessened in the 17th century, Plymouth lost much of its importance as a naval base. It remained the second town of Devon, stinking, sprawling, and full of poverty-stricken fishermen, carrying on also a considerable trade with the New England colonies. The next great impetus to its growth came with the rise of France as the national enemy, and hence the renewed necessity for a western naval base. Dartmouth and Falmouth were considered and rejected, and the site for the new naval dockyards was fixed, not at Plymouth itself, but on the unpeopled marshes and meadows along the edge of the Tamar. By 1696 the naval base of Dock had come into being. The incessant wars of the 18th century nourished the new town to such effect that within a hundred years it had surpassed Plymouth, and the rivalry between the two was intense. By 1815 Dock had some 32,000 people against Plymouth's 22,000. Stonehouse, which lay between them, had grown to about 6,000 with the overflow of naval buildings from Dock, but the three towns were still separate entities. In 1824 Dock was granted the more dignified name of Devonport and Foulston's fine column (which still stands) went up to commemorate the event. Devon- port achieved complete recognition as a separate town when it was incorporated in 1837.

With the end of the long wars, Devonport's growth slowed up, and Plymouth forged ahead as a fishing port and a growing commercial harbour. The construction of the Breakwater by Rennie (1812-40) gave the port one of the largest and safest harbours in Britain. By 1881 Plymouth had 74,000 people, Devonport rather less than 49,000, Stonehouse some 15,000---a total of about 138,000 in the Three Towns, as they were now habitually called. They were now one continuous mass of building and their unification under one authority was inevitable. This came in 1914, when the whole borough took the name of Plymouth, though each town retains its own distinctive character. Plymouth flourished as a great naval base during the war of 1914-18: "Upon the British coast what ship yet ever came that, not of Plymouth hears, where the brave navies lie?" said Drayton long ago in his Polyolbion.

But the Second German War reached it as the First had not done. From 1940 to 1943, and above all in the terrible spring of 1941, the city was pounded from the air by the missionaries of 20th century civilisation, and suffered vast damage and casualties. About 1,000 people were killed, 5,000 injured, 10,000 houses destroyed, and some 70,000 more damaged. The whole centre of the city was wiped out, but the congested area around Sutton Pool largely escaped and represents all that is left of old Plymouth. Now the city slowly struggles to rise from the ruins, hampered by the poverty of the times in which it is our misfortune to live.

Of medieval Plymouth, very little remains. The fine 15th century parish church of St. Andrew was gutted by fire in the 1941 raids. The tower and walls stand, and it is proposed to rebuild it. Chantrey's marble bust of Zachariah Mudge, a great Plymouth figure in Georgian times and a close friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds, was among the things saved from the burning church. Charles Church, not far away, the only 17th century church to be built in Devon, was dedicated to King Charles the Martyr, and consecrated by Bishop Seth Ward in 1664. It, too, was destroyed except for its tower and walls, and its future is uncertain. The Prysten House ("Priests' House") on the S. side of St. Andrew's churchyard, is a late 15th century building which fortunately escaped damage. It is a quadrangular building of limestone and granite, with a central courtyard and original door-ways, windows, staircases, roofs, and other features. (For fuller details see Judge, The Story of the Prysten House, Plymouth)

At the E. end of the Hoe is the Citadel, the most important historic building left in Plymouth, commanding the entrance to the Cattewater and to Sutton Pool. There had been earlier defensive works at Plymouth. Henry IV had granted the inhabitants of Plymouth a patent "to erect towers and defences against their enemies," and a map of Henry VIII's time shows a wall, with towers at each end, extending along the whole length of the Hoe. A new fort was erected on the E. end of the Hoe in 1590-2, but this was demolished in 1666 when the foundation-stone of the present Citadel was laid by John Grenville, Earl of Bath and governor of the town. This foundation-stone may still be seen. The Citadel has been described as a fine example of the 17th century type of fortress associated with the name of Vauban, the celebrated French military engineer. Its main gateway, dated 1670, is one of the best examples of baroque architecture in this country, often attributed to Wren but in fact the work of Sir Thomas Fitz.(Copeland, The Royal Citadel, Plymouth, 9. I am indebted to admirable booklet for the details of the Citadel) It is unlike anything else in the west of England. St. Katherine's chapel in the Citadel was built in 1668, but rebuilt in 1845 in a Gothic style. Its original N. doorway remains. The chapel is open to the public for divine worship at certain times stated on a board by the main gate. Charles II visited the town twice (in 1671 and 1677) to inspect the Citadel.

The last gasp of good architecture is the early 19th century work of John Foulston (1772-1842), who left an unmistakable stamp everywhere in the Three Towns, both in their monumental public buildings and in their minor domestic architecture. Foulston was trained in Thomas Hardwick's office and apparently practised in London. In 1811 he competed for the new hotel, assembly rooms, and theatre (plate 2) projected by the Plymouth corporation. His design was accepted and the foundation stone of this monumental group laid on 10 September 1811. At the age of forty he took up his residence in Plymouth and here he worked for the next thirty years, town-planning on a grand scale or designing a single villa with equal facility. Professor A. E. Richardson sums up his work thus: " Foulston, like Granger of Newcastle, was fired with the desire to emulate Nash's work in London; the moment and the man had arrived for such developments, and the result was the shaping of Union Street with the Octagon as a hiatus at the centre. Foulston's other town-planning achievements included Athenaeum Street, Lockyer Street, the Crescent and a range of villas called Devonshire Villas to the north of the town. In addition to designing the majority of the terraces in Plymouth he constructed nearly all the public buildings, with the exception of the Customs House, which was designed by Laing; and he at this time prepared plans for nearly all the minor streets which the speculative builders of the day were eager to proceed with. Plymouth in the early 'twenties was a forest of scaffold poles, soon to be cleared to reveal the stuccoed conventions in Greek taste devised by this architect. It is, of course, burking the question to assume that Foulston designed every house, but his personality is stamped on the doors, windows and iron gates, while it is clear the builders of the time were sworn to allegiance, for they caught the spirit of his manner and faithfully obeyed his orders. At Stoke Damarel, Foulston's hand is to be seen in the composition of the stately facade forming St. Michael's Terrace, as well as in the unique Albemarle Villas which are contiguous (plate 5). His work at Devonport included the civic centre, the Naval Column and many other works." (Richardson and Gill, MRegional Architecture of the West of England, 54) Towards the end of his life, Foulston took into partnership George Wightwick, who did much good building in Plymouth and Devonport in the 1850s. But after 1860 the Foulston tradition was lost and new building in the Three Towns became as common-place as anywhere else.

Of Foulston's great civic centre in Plymouth, most is gone. The Theatre was destroyed before 1939 to make room for a gigantic cinema which might just as well be in the outer suburbs of London (it survived the air-raids), and the Royal Hotel and Assembly RS perished in the raids of 1941. The Athenaeum, built next to the theatre by Foulston in 1818-19, is also gone. The Proprietary library (1812) in Cornwall Street, was destroyed in the war of 1939-45. The Royal Union Baths (1828), in Foulston's best classical style, were pulled down as early as 1849 to make room for the new Millbay railway terminus. One of the few public buildings by Foulston left in Plymouth is St. Catherine's Church in Lockyer Street, built in 1823 and then called St. Andrew's chapel.

At Devonport most of Foulston's civic centre in Ker Street survives; the Town Hall (plate 3), a handsome classical building modelled on the Parthenon, finished in 1823, the Column commemorating the new name of Devonport (1824), and the Civil and Military Library (1823). The Column was originally intended to have a colossal statue of George IV on the top, but the necessary funds were never forthcoming. The Civil and Military Library was built in the Egyptian style one of Foulston's few eccentric buildings. It is now a Christian Scientist church and exceedingly soobby. The Mount Zion chapel, now destroyed, formed part of this civic centre. It was built for the Calvinists in a vaguely Mohammedan style. Foulston calls this extraordinary collection of buildings "an experimental group." His own opinion was that it was a strange but picturesque combination. (Foulston, The Public Buildings in the West of England as designed by John Foulston, 63)

Among the numerous 19th century churches of Devonport, a number were designed by J. P. St. Aubyn, including St. Paul's (1849), St. Mary's (1850), St. James the Great at Keyham (1849- 51), and St. Stephen's (1852). St. Aubyn's Church was built in 1771, St. John's (Duke Street) in 1779. The ancient parish church of Stoke Damarel (St. Andrew) is of little interest. It was a 15th century church, but has been so enlarged and altered as to have little character left.

The monumental architecture of the Dockyard and the other naval establishments in Devonport and Stonehouse is of much more importance. Sir John Rennie's Royal William Victualling Yard at Stonehouse (1826-35) is one of the grandest monuments of the 19th century in England. It is a vast conception, of Spartan severity: an engineer's architecture suitable in every way for naval affairs and designed down to the detail of the lamp-posts. Less exciting are the Royal Naval Hospital at Stonehouse (1762 onwards) and the Royal Marine Barracks (1784 and later). The two dockyards that constitute the Naval Dockyard front the mouth of the Tamar-here called the Hamoaze- for some 2 m. and cover together 243 acres. Visitors of British nationality may be conducted around them on application at the main (Keyham) gate at any time during ordinary working hours. The two yards are separated by the Gun Wharf, built in 1718-25 by Vanburgh.

St. Budeaux, N. of Devonport, is now completely engulfed in suburban Plymouth. The parish church (St. Budoc) was rebuilt in 1563 "in the Gothic style on a new site which commands fine views of the river and the Cornish bank. The old site was somewhere by the shore of the creek near Budshead, and was perhaps the landing place of the Celtic saint Budoc in the 6th or 7th century.There are considerable traces of the old mansion of the Budsheads here. The whole creek is beautiful and full of feeling, associated as it is with many of the early saints, Indract, Dominic, Budoc, and all their company (see TAMERTON FOLIOT also). The present church is chiefly of interest for its associations with Sir Francis Drake who was married here to Mary Newman in 1569, and with Sir Ferdinando Gorges (1566?- 1647). He was governor of Plymouth, became interested in colonisation, and formed two companies which received grants of land in New England. He founded the settlement of New Plymouth in 1628, and was appointed first governor of Maine in 1635. He died in 1647 and his table monument is here.

Egg Buckland parish on the NE. side of Plymouth is partly occupied by the military defences of the town and port. The church (St. Erasmus) has a good 14th century tower and S. porch, but was otherwise rebuilt in 1864. Widey Court, about 1 m. NW., was the headquarters of Prince Maurice when he besieged Plymouth in 1643, and was visited by the king in September 1644. The house is now neglected and dilapidated.

In the middle of Plymouth Sound lies Drake's Island, formerly called St. Nicholas's Island from the chapel that stood on it. It is fortified and garrisoned, and was formerly a State prison. The republican general Lambert died a prisoner here in 1683, after sixteen years' confinement which he passed chiefly in painting flowers and working out problems in algebra. For a time he had as a fellow-prisoner James Harington, the political theorist and author of The Commonwealth of Oceana. Harington was afterwards allowed to live in Plymouth for his health's sake, and eventually died in London in 1677. Several adherents of the parliamentarian cause were confined on the island after 1660, as well as dissenting ministers after the act of 1662. (Mowan, A Brief History of Drake's Island, 12) The chapel of St. Nicholas, which stood on the summit of the island, was demolished in 1548 to make room for the fortifications. The island now belongs to the War Department and is not normally open to the public.

Beyond the island lies the Breakwater, begun in 1812 and finished by Sir John Rennie in 1840. It lies 2 m. from the Hoe, is about a mile long, and required about 4,500,000 tons of limestone for its construction. The lighthouse on the end was first lit in 1844. In the centre is a large fort, which is actually a separate structure.

Fourteen miles from the Hoe, from which it is visible on clear days, is the famous Eddystone lighthouse, the fourth on the site. The first structure was Winstanley's (1696), swept away in the great storm of 1703. Rudyerd's lighthouse (1706) was burnt down in 1755. Smeaton's (1759) was only superseded in 1882 because the rock on which it stood was being undermined by the sea. It was taken down and re-erected on Plymouth Hoe. The present lighthouse was built by Sir J. N. Douglass and lit in 1882. It rises 133ft. above high-water mark. It is built of granite blocks, weighing in all 4,668 tons, and has been the model for most lighthouses since built in similar situations on isolated reefs.

Plymouth has given its name to some forty Plymouths all over the English-speaking world. What greater testimony is needed to the affection that it has inspired for the past 400 years? It is the mother of all Plymouths everywhere.