Plymouth

 

Plymouth claims it is England's Ocean City.  It is very much a naval town.  Plymouth sound is fed by two rivers.  On the west is the river Tamar, which is the home of the Royal Navy.  The Barbican is on the east side and looks out on the mouth of the river Plym.  Plymouth Hoe is a large park centrally located  between the rivers with great views of Plymouth Sound.  It is home to monuments, Smeaton’s Tower, Tinside Lido and plays host to festivals.  It’s also where we stayed for this leg of our trip.   

Tinside Lido is an Oceanside Art Deco swimming pool
Building in foreground is nice restaurant we enjoyed

West Hoe neighborhood

The Barbican is Plymouth’s old Port with its historic waterfront and narrow lanes full of restaurants and small shops.  From here the Pilgrim's departed Plymouth for the New World.  It is also home to Plymouth Gin which was founded in 1793.  As Gin became more popular, Plymouth Gin “Navy Strength” replaced Rum rations in the Royal Navy.

Barbican’s narrow lanes held several art galleries, tea rooms and tourist shops

Scallops at The Catch Restaurant

Steps & Memorial that represent where the Mayflower departed in 1620

We tried a flight of Gins with Navy strength being the favorite

We didn’t wait long before we started to explore the west side of town, starting with the Royal William Yard.   It was built between 1825 and 1831 to provision and supply the Royal Navy.   Today it is a trendy neighborhood of renovated historic Navy buildings full of high end housing, restaurants and shops.   

Great repurposing of historic buildings

Plymouth has wonderful and reasonably priced passenger ferry service to cross the two rivers.  We took the ferry several times.  The only surprise we had was at Cawsand.  Cawsand is a gorgeous waterside village.  However it doesn’t have a dock for the Ferry to use.   Instead the boat puts its bow on the shore and a wheeled ramp comes up to the boat.  Two important considerations we weren’t aware of, but fortunately didn’t impact us were:

1. Your feet may get wet if the surf is up
2. The ferry doesn’t run at low tide

Cawsand.    It doesn’t get any more picturesque than this

Historic building in background is Old Fort Picklecomb and is today part of  a condo complex.

Cawsand is not a town for cars, but a few squeezed through

I love the street name to the right of top Carol’s head

Local Pubs

Mount Edgecumbe is a former estate now part of the National Trust.   It consists of the House, Gardens and hundreds of acres of park land.   The Edgecumbe family were granted the lands in 1515 by King Henry the VIII.  Over the years there were many additions until WWII when it was hit by an incendiary bomb that gutted the building.   The shell of the stately manner stood until the late 1950s when the family with financial aid from the government rebuilt the main part of the home, leaving off the East and West Wings.  This created a modern home within a historical set of walls.  

We enjoyed the tour of the home, but the best part were the variety of Gardens: French, Italian, Jubilee, New Zealand and English.

Edgecumbe Gardens

French Garden

Italian Garden

Bark on tree on left, reminded us of cork

While at Mount Edgcumbe, we learned the amusing but tragic story of the First Eddystone Reef Lighthouse, Winstanley’s Light that the paining we saw depicted.    It’s eccentric builder was told it couldn’t be done, which he would have none of.  It was the first lighthouse to be built offshore on a reef at a time England was at war with France which didn’t bode well for him.  To me it looks like something from a Disney telling of a Jules Verne novel.  Click the link above to read the story of his capture, Royal Pardon and ultimate demise.  

50 years after Winstanley’s Light met its fate, Smeaton's Tower was erected as a Lighthouse on Eddystone reef in 1759.  It original light source was candles.  Later it was converted to Kerosene.  In 1880 the top 2/3rds were relocated stone by stone to the Hoe as a memorial.  It must have been a difficult life for the 3 lighthouse caretakers.  

Top left shows original candle chandelier that was later replaced with kerosene lamps with reflector

North of Plymouth is the Tamar Valley AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty).  We opted to visit it by a boat trip through Plymouth Sound and up the Tamar Valley to Calstock.  The River is the boundary between Cornwall and Devon.  Along the way, we sailed past HMNB Devonport, the largest Navy base in Western Europe.  It is a large complex with ships and subs from both the Royal Navy and NATO allies.

We found another example of Isambard Brunel’s talent (pictured below) as we past underneath a very modern looking single track train bridge.   It’s the Royal Albert Bridge opened by Prince Albert in 1859.   Hard to believe its 163 years old.

We enjoyed the beauty of the valley, homes and hundreds of moored sailboats on our way to the picturesque village of Calstock.   During our layover in Calstock, we decided to try Clotted Tea.   We knew Clotted Cream is a heavy cream that is used in everything including ice cream and fudge.  We wondered if the Brits put it in the tea, but learned you place in on the Scones you enjoy with your tea. We were also educated that when in Cornwall, you place jam on the scone first and then the cream.   In Devon across the river, tradition has you placing the cream on first followed by the jam.  

Royal Navy had guests from Portuguese Navy & German Navy (not pictured)

Isambard Brunel completed this RR bridge (foreground) shortly before he died

See Bristol Post for more regarding this innovative Engineer

Cornwall side of river

Devon side of river, note remains of large boat on left

Cotehele Estate

Cowsand Cornwall with train on RR bridge

Clotted Cream Tea and Scones wasn’t what we expected at place on bottom

Drake’s Island is named after one of Plymouth’s favorite sons, Sir Francis Drake.   His exploits began overseas, he likely never set foot on the island.   The island has been a fortress defending Plymouth for several centuries.   Our tour guide shared the stories of the everyday people who lived and worked on the island.  He keeps a blog on the history of Drakes Island if your interested.  We walked the small 6.5 acre island visiting gun emplacements and the ammunition tunnels built to safely store and transfer ammunition to the gun emplacements.  There are plans to renovate the former Royal Navy buildings as part of a future resort.  

Drakes Island along with a fortifications on each bank guarded England's largest naval base

Top right is a rifled cannon from late 19th century

South West Coast Path at 630 miles in length is the longest National Trail.  We walked only a small fraction of that across multiple days.   On three of the days we took passenger ferries to cross the bay to reach the path.  We traversed open fields, forest, cliff tops and city streets.  We saw: 

• Crashing waves against cliffs and rocks
• A few small sandy beaches
• Old fortresses everywhere
• Current day military installations inhabiting very old structures
• Bushes on both sides that made it feel like we were in a tunnel
• Grass so high it felt like we were in the old US Midwest prairies
• Narrow paths surrounded with vegetation pulling at our clothes that made us question if we were on the right path
• Wild ponies so close that we had nowhere to go but the edge of the path so they could pass

The black lines represent the areas we walked

After a brief stand off, we made as much room as possible to allow them to pass