In defence of Plymouth — history
On 26 May 2020, the Plymouth Herald published an opinion piece entitled Man returns to Plymouth and claims it’s no longer ‘beautiful’. The story was submitted to the Herald by somebody called Adam, whose return to the city is said to have “made him want to vent”. Reading this piece pushed me to speak out.
This article isn’t the first time I’ve heard complaints about how Plymouth looks, and I very much doubt it’ll be the last. Locals and outsiders alike can be heard in unison ripping into the city’s aesthetics.
“Plymouth is just a large city with a naval base and ugly, brutal architecture.”
Kevin, Trip Advisor“An ugly picture in a beautiful frame. The town isn’t very pretty; however, the Barbican is lovely.”
Jackie, Trip Advisor“Following intense bombing in WWII, the city centre was rebuilt by stoned and drug-addicted urban planners who had a fetish for ugly concrete buildings.”
Stewie, Urban Dictionary
I suppose if you focused on only the worst parts of the city, you might come to the same conclusion yourself. But why does Plymouth look the way it does? Is it truly fair to call its architecture ugly?
Before we get to that, I’d like to talk a bit about how Plymouth came to be what it is today. Our city’s fascinating history will set out a good groundwork for discussing Plymouth in a modern context.
Early history
Humankind has long inhabited our sweeping hills and ocean vistas. Archaeologists have uncovered prehistoric artefacts in caves and hill forts surrounding Plymouth- human remains found in caves around Cattedown are amongst the oldest ever discovered on the British Isles.
Ptolemy referred to a settlement called Tamari Ostia, meaning mouth of the Tamar. The inhabitants of the latter presumably lived on or around Plymouth Sound.
For much of history, the town we now refer to as Plymouth was called Sutton, meaning “southern town”. South of what? Plympton.
Many experts believe that the name Plympton derived from the Old English word for plum tree. Some argue it comes from the Celtic Pen-lyn-don, or fort at the head of a creek. We may never know which is more accurate. Either way, by the early 13th century the river Plym had been named as a back-formation of Plympton and Plymstock.
Thus, from the River Plym, the name Plymouth was born.
Middle ages
In 1439 a petition to King Henry VI set forth the grievances of the Plymouth townspeople and requested the amalgamation of the town of Sutton Prior, the tithing of Sutton Ralf (or Radcliffe) and the hamlet of Sutton Valletort (or Vautort) to make it a free borough outside of the control of the County, the Hundred Court and the Prior of Plympton.
On 25 July 1440, the King granted the Charter, officially marking Sutton’s passing and Plymouth’s beginning. The new town was the second borough to be created, and the first approved by Parliament. Township gave many new privileges and greater self-governance.
The late fifteenth century saw Plymouth Castle’s construction to defend the Royal Navy’s fleet in Sutton Pool. Its four round towers, one at each corner, can still be seen on the city’s coat of arms. The castle itself is no more, save for a small fragment of an outer gatehouse residing on the Barbican. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, explosions in the population resulted in residents scavenging its walls for building materials.
Renaissance
Early sixteenth-century Plymouth found a significant income source in wool export through its thriving trading port. It also saw some of its more famous (and more controversial) characters come to the forefront.
Sir Francis Drake, whose name can be found adorning streets and monuments almost everywhere in Plymouth, completed England’s first circumnavigation of the world between 1577 and 1580. His voyage claimed new territories for England and helped start an era of conflict with Spain.
Upon his return, Drake was knighted by Queen Elizabeth and made Mayor of Plymouth. He may have been hailed as a hero to the English, but he was branded a pirate by the Spanish. Drake’s controversial role in history is compounded by having served under his older cousin, John Hawkins.
Sir John Hawkins pioneered the English slave trade. In 1562, he set sail for Sierra Leone, captured 300 slaves, and took them to American plantations. He traded the slaves for pearls, hides, and sugar. This trade was so prosperous that, on his return to England, the Crown backed further voyages and granted Hawkins a coat of arms bearing the depiction of a slave.
In modern times, the efficacy of having the names and likenesses of historical slave traders plastered across parks and streets in Plymouth has been called into question.
Of course, Plymouth is also famous as the starting point for the Pilgrims’ 1620 voyage to the New World. The Pilgrims carried Plymouth’s name across the Atlantic, thus founding Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Before them, Sir Walter Raleigh had set off from Plymouth to found the Roanoke Colony in 1587. This voyage turned out to be less than successful, with the entirety of the colony’s population mysteriously disappearing before 1590.
Plymouth sided with the Parliamentarians during the English Civil War, resulting in continued Royalist attacks on the city for almost four years. Parliamentarians were ultimately successful in the war, but monarchy was restored just nine years later. As a result, many Parliamentarian fighters ended up imprisoned on St Nicholas’ Island in Plymouth Sound-nowadays more commonly known as Drake’s Island.
Five years after the monarchy’s restoration, in 1665, construction began on the Royal Citadel-a large fort supplanting the previous Drake’s Fort. Sited on the eastern edge of the Hoe, it overlooks Plymouth Sound. Unusually, its gun faces towards the city as well as out to sea-said by some to be a reminder for the Parliamentary town not to oppose the Crown again.
By the mid-seventeenth century, Plymouth had lost a lot of trade through its port. Goods produced across the country proved too expensive to transport to the relatively isolated town. Other towns had the factories required to process commodities imported from colonies and plantations. Many local sailors turned to piracy as a more reliable form of income.
Naval city
William III founded Plymouth Royal Dockyard in 1691. He had surveyed an area on the Cattewater and found it inadequate. Instead, the King decided to build a new Royal Naval Dockyard on the banks of the Hamoaze within the parish of Stoke Damerel. This area, a town separate from Plymouth, soon became known as Plymouth Dock.
Plymouth, Stonehouse and Plymouth Dock grew to be known collectively as the Three Towns. In the early eighteenth century, the Dockyard generated most of the conurbation’s wealth.
Impressive structures
Since prehistoric times, the Eddystone Rocks that lie twelve miles south of Plymouth Sound have proved a constant hazard to shipping. Lurking just beneath the surface, untold numbers of vessels have met their fate on the formation.
In 1698 a lighthouse, an octagonal wooden one designed by Henry Winstanley, was lit for the first time. It was considered a success until it was swept into the sea by the Great Storm of 1703.
Attempt number two, a conical wooden structure designed by John Rudyard, was lit 1708. Again, this tower proved beneficial. Unfortunately, in 1755, the lantern’s top caught fire and the lighthouse burnt to the sea.
The third structure, designed by civil engineer John Smeaton, was modelled on an oak tree’s gently-tapered shape. Its Cornish granite blocks were dovetailed and interlocked for strength. Hydraulic lime was used for perhaps the first time in modern history, allowing concrete to be set underwater, bonding the structure to the rocks beneath the waves. Smeaton’s Tower was first lit in 1759.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century, prosperity brought about several new and impressive buildings. London architect John Foulston designed grand structures such as the Town Hall (in present-day Devonport), the original Plymouth Athenaeum, the original Theatre Royal and Royal Hotel, and much of Union Street.
Famous Scottish civic engineer John Rennie designed Plymouth Breakwater, a mile-long structure to protect the naval fleets from inclement weather. Its construction began in 1812 but wasn’t completed until 1861-twenty years after Rennie’s death. Engineers used around 4 million tons of rock in its construction at the then-colossal cost of £1.5 million (equivalent to £101 million today).
To produce the immense amounts of rock required, workers dug a new quarry in Oreston. Breakwater Quarry stands today as a testament to the sheer quantity of stone moved-you’ll find the Royal Mail sorting office here.
Changing times
In 1823, after a petition by residents, the quickly growing Plymouth Dock was renamed Devonport. Plymouth Royal Dockyard became Devonport Royal Dockyard twenty years later. At this time, Devonport was still very much a separate town from Stonehouse and Plymouth.
In the 1860s, the government built at least 30 forts around Plymouth to protect from a French invasion that never came. These so-called Palmerston’s Follies remain scattered around Plymouth. One of them is home to an MOT station, another a breakers yard. You may never have noticed them before as they were mostly built to camouflage into the landscape.
Meanwhile, Smeaton’s Tower had remained in good working condition out to sea until 1877. Its foundation rock had started to erode, causing the tower to shake from side to side in large seas. After decommissioning, it was rebuilt on Plymouth Hoe as a memorial. You can still see the lower half of the tower next to its replacement, Douglass’ Tower-the foundations having proved too strong to be dismantled by the Victorians.
Entering the twentieth century
Only in 1914 did the Three Towns merge to become the Borough of Plymouth. The borough later became a city by Royal Charter in 1928.
So we’ve reached the nineteen-hundreds. A lot has happened up until this point, and it’s not about to slow down. Before we start going into Plymouth during the wars, I’d like to peer into how Plymouth looked at the dawn of the twentieth century.
What goes up must come down
We now know a very condensed history of Plymouth, from prehistoric times to just before the First World War-trust me, this is going somewhere.
I think it’s important to understand what Plymouth was before the wars, and how they shaped it. Only then can we know how and why it was rebuilt the way it was.
In the next article, I intend to delve into Plymouth’s role in the wars, the damage and destruction it withstood, and a little bit of the rebuild story.
Stay tuned for part two of ‘ In defence of Plymouth’.
Originally published at http://plym.news on January 20, 2021.
