220
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
facts come to light in Devon if we search carefully. Landkey, a parish just south-east of Barnstaple and not far from the head of the Taw estuary, is a suggestive name. It was the "church of St. Kea,” a dedication also found in Cornwall and in Brittany. Here, in this warm fertile valley below the rounded sweep of Godden Hill, a monastic community was in all probability founded in the 6th century: a community of celibate clergy observing a religious rule and entrusted with the care of souls over a wide and ill-defined area. Landkey church is now dedicated to St. Paul, but this represents a re-foundation—probably in the 12th century—as a chapelry of the extensive parish of Bishop’s Tawton. At some unknown date the Celtic community ceased to exist, as at Tintagel; the later church adopted another dedication, but the village name preserved the original.
Four miles farther inland is Filleigh, where the church is also dedicated to St. Paul to-day. But Canon Doble shows very plausibly that the place- name is derived from St. Fili, the companion of St. Kea, and that the original dedication was to that Celtic saint. St. Kea was probably a monk from Celtic Glastonbury, who had a Welsh companion named Fili.
These two, perhaps with others from Glastonbury, were evangelising Devon during the 6th century.  Kerrian, too, was a disciple of Kea, and dedications to him are found in Devon (at Exeter) and in Cornwall. Not many miles from Landkey and Filleigh, and within a couple of miles of the Taw estuary again, is Braunton, which is pretty certainly the Brannuemunster given (according to William of Malmesbury) by King Ethelbald to Glastonbury in the middle of the 9th century. Here the church is still dedicated to the 6th-century Welsh missionary, St. Brannoc or Brynach. Both William of Worcester and Leland tell us that Brannoc was buried in Braunton church, where his relics were certainly preserved until the middle of Elizabeth’s reign. They now lie somewhere beneath the high altar.2 Braunton was another monastic community of the same type as Landkey. It seems likely that the Taw estuary was a centre for the early Celtic saints, as we might expect from its position in relation to Wales and Ireland, whence so many of them came, and that a number of early churches were founded in the country behind.

Other churches dedicated to the Celtic saints—Breton, Irish, and Welsh—may be found scattered all over Devon, especially in the north, south and west of the county. The infrequency of Celtic dedications to the east of the Exe, in the Romanised part of Devon, is very noticeable. In all there appear to be about forty or fifty churches in Devon dedicated to the Celtic saints, to which must be added about sixteen medieval chapels which have now disappeared. The map suggests a close connection between the voyages of the early missionary saints, penetrating up the Devon estuaries, and the distribution of Celtic dedications, while there is also marked evidence in mid-western Devon of influence from Cornwall (as at Milton Abbot and Dunterton, for example). No fewer than eighteen dedications to the Welsh saint Petrock are known in Devon: he was by far the most important of the western missionary saints in the 6th century. But the cult of St. Petrock continued vigorously throughout the diocese of Exeter down to the Reformation, and it would be a wild error to assume that all the churches and chapels dedicated to him were founded by him.

The evidence of church dedications is full of difficulties. Old dedications have been forgotten, or have been deliberately changed, or have been corrupted into something nearly unrecognisable—like St. Winwalloe at Portlemouth, now called St. Onolaus. Again, churches founded at a comparatively late date might still be dedicated to a Celtic saint. It is indeed possible that these were founded on sites already associated with early saints, sites marked perhaps by a holy well or a cross, but when we say this we are venturing well into the quicksands. That the dedications of parish churches have a value as historical evidence is beyond question. They undoubtedly tell us something about Celtic Christianity in Devon. Especially is this true of the dedications to the more obscure saints, which are likely to be contemporary. But we must be cautious about tracing the footsteps of St. Petrock, for example, from the whereabouts of the churches that bear his name. Moreover, the Celts could and did dedicate churches to the apostles, and there may well be churches in Devon with such dedications that go back to Celtic times. In exceptional cases the study of church dedications may throw some light on the history of the early Church, as in the Barnstaple district we have just discussed, but taken as a whole it is a dangerous pastime for the historian.
All we can be certain of so far is that Devon was being fairly extensively
evangelised during the 6th century by missionaries of Irish, Welsh and
Breton extraction, that some of these came from the Celtic monastery at
Glastonbury, and that a number of churches in Devon were founded at
this time, notably on or near the estuaries and the sea-coasts.2 There
seem to have been close associations between Glastonbury abbey and
ancient Dumnonia, as witness the early and extensive grants of land to
the abbey in Devon and eastern Cornwall, and the connections of some
of the missionary saints. It is possible, indeed, that the abbey which
existed at Exeter in the 7th century—at which St. Boniface was educated
—was a Celtic foundation and a daughter of Glastonbury, but there is no
proof of this.
In ancient sunlight the Celtic saints sailed up the tidal waters of the
Taw, and walked on its shores through “ lorn autumns and triumphant
springs.” They knew by heart the shapes of the hills we see to-day, of
222
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
Codden above Landkey and the far purple sweep of the Exmoor edge
below which they built their stone oratories and founded their churches.
They knew the hill at Exeter—ancient Isca within its dark Roman
walls-crowned by the abbey of St. Mary and St. Peter, and the wide
glittering waters of the Exe down to the sea. They knew the Dart and
founded a church on the rocks at its very mouth; and St. Brendan the
navigator ” rounded the foaming Start and raised a chapel on the head
land of Prawle. And they knew the noble Tamar well, for St. Indract
and St. Dominic landed at the port of Tamerunta in the closing years of
the 7th century,1 which is Tamerton Foliot at the head of a forgotten
creek to-day; and St. Budoc came here, too, when he founded a church
at Budshead (Budoc’s hide) on the shore of the same creek. Walking
beside these estuaries and over these headlands, one treads on holy ground,
where the Celtic saints once walked in " the freshness of the early world ”
and we breathe immortal air.
THE ENGLISH CHURCH
earlier.
With the completion of the Saxon occupation of Devon, the south
west of England was brought within the new see of Sherborne, created in
705. Two hundred years later, in the year 909, this vast diocese of Sher
borne was split up, and among the smaller sees then created were those
of Wells, Crediton, and St. Germans, covering Somerset, Devon, and
Cornwall respectively. About 1040, the dioceses of Cornwall and Crediton
were united in the person of Lyfing. He was followed by Leofric, who also
held the two bishoprics until 1050. In that year Leofric merged the two
sees and moved his seat to Exeter,2 probably because it was a walled city
and Crediton only an open village. The see of Exeter thereafter included
the whole of Devon and Cornwall, until the creation of the diocese of
Truro in 1876, which brought the ancient bishopric of Cornwall to life
again. There is no positive proof for the statement, often made, that the
see was originally at Bishop’s Tawton.8 The medieval bishops of Exeter
had a country residence there, from the early 14th century, perhaps
The assertion of the existence of a pre-Conquest see rests
upon the slenderest foundations, but some of the evidence is suggestive
and we cannot rule out the possibility that Bishop’s Tawton may have
preceded Crediton as the seat of an assistant bishop under Sherborne.
After the absorption of Devon into the Saxon ecclesiastical organisa
tion, parochial churches were built in increasing numbers, though we
have no means of knowing how many existed at the time of the Norman
Conquest. Domesday Book does not set out to give this information, and
cannot be used for this purpose. Not a stone of Saxon building remains
in Devon, except the crypt at Sidbury and possibly one or two fragments
223
THE ENGLISH CHURCH
in Exeter. It is certain that the great majority of pre-Conquest churches
in Devon were made of timber, for there were endless oak woods for the
taking. All these timber churches were rebuilt long ago, and the
archaeological evidence is now gone. The documentary evidence is
slight, but here and there it helps us. The names of Exminster and
Axminster (the only two minsters left in Devon) make it certain that
churches existed here soon after 705. We know that a minster was
founded at Crediton in 739, and that other early minsters existed at
Braunton, Plympton, and Coryton. A considerable number of other
churches had come into being before 1066. I am inclined to think that
all, or nearly all, the true nucleated villages in Devon possessed a church
by the 11th century. A list of all the churches which are the mother
churches of a wide area would yield additional examples of pre-Conquest
foundations, and in some instances a highly localised dedication, like that
of St. Urith at Chittlehampton—a local saint and a unique dedication—
would give a closer date.1
The 12 th century was one of the most formative periods in eccle
siastical, as it was in political and economic, history. Let us pause for a
moment, however, at the year 1100 to look over the diocese of Exeter as
it was then. The bishop ruled over all the territory between Somerset
and Land’s End, a vast stretch of country, much of it difficult and almost
unknown. (Even in the 14th century the newly-appointed bishops
thought of themselves, as Grandisson did, as coming to the edge of the
known world.) He was a powerful magnate, the third greatest landowner
in the Devonshire Domesday. Figures are not easy to arrive at, but the
episcopal estates in Devon alone have been reckoned at nearly 77,000
acres. The bishop had twenty-four manors in Devon, and another eleven
in Cornwall. In Cornwall he was again the third largest landowner,
possessing nearly one-eighth of the recorded ploughlands, with an acreage
that may be tentatively reckoned at about 36,000. In all, the bishop’s
thirty-five manors in the south-west amounted to well over 100,000 acres.2
In medieval times Exeter was the fourth largest diocese, and sixth in
the value of episcopal revenues, being worth more than Lincoln or
Norwich.3
Only the King and Baldwin, the sheriff, had greater estates than the
bishop in Devon. Four monastic houses held nearly 40,000 acres of land
between them in the county (Tavistock, Buckfast, Glastonbury and
Horton). Altogether the Church held some 142,000 acres, nearly one
sixth of the recorded total of 907,665 acres, or about 232 hides out of a
total of 1,129. The total holding of the Church was second only to that
of the King.
The only two monastic houses in Domesday Devon were the Bene
dictine abbeys of Tavistock, founded about 974, and Buckfast, founded
264
BUILDING AND BUILDING MATERIALS
trade. Slate from the great quarries at Mill Hill, near Tavistock, was
similarly exported to the Channel Islands and France.1
Many quarries in south, west and north Devon produced tolerable
roofing slates, and most of the older farmhouses arid buildings are roofed
in this way: most picturesque in their weathered irregularity and their
multi-coloured lichens. The Devon roofing slates were, however, inclined
to go soft with weathering, and by the mid-19th century were giving way
to the more durable Delabole slates from Cornwall. Later, the spread
of railways brought in the Welsh slates, a disagreeable and foreign
material, and one by one the Devon slate quarries shut down.
In south-west Devon, two very characteristic building stones make a
localised appearance. Hurdwick stone, from quarries about a mile out
of Tavistock, is a loose-textured, free-working trappean ash, which was
extensively quarried throughout medieval times and at intervals until
the latter part of the 19th century. It is durable, and of a most pleasant
colour: an under-water green. Tavistock abbey was built of it (the
quarries were abbey property), and much of modern Tavistock during the
19th century, so giving the town that air of greenness everywhere that
makes it so distinctively beautiful. Hurdwick stone can be found in
medieval churches for miles north and south of Tavistock, where it may
be recognised by its colour and its pitted appearance.
The other distinctive building stone of south-west Devon is the
Roborough elvan, sometimes difficult to distinguish from granite unless
one sees the two together, as one occasionally does in the two arcades of
a 15th-century church, e.g. at Tamerton Foliot. The elvans are, indeed,
granitic in character. Some make admirable building stone, others are
worthless. The best was the elvan from Roborough Down, which was a
favourite stone for dressings and carved work from the early 14th century
onwards. It was widely used, in this part of Devon, in the arcades of
Perpendicular churches, and for window mullions. In colour it is a
warm buff, and it has little or none of the mica-sparkle of granite.
GRANITE
The granite of Dartmoor was not used as a building stone, except in
the form of boulders for the rubble-masonry of medieval farmsteads,
until the 15th century. It was used occasionally for fonts from the close
of the 12th century, and might be carried for considerable distances, as
we see at Bridgerule and Clyst St. Lawrence. As rubble masonry, usually
in the form of dry walling, surface granite (known as moorstone) has been
used from time immemorial. It was so used in the hut walls of the Bronze
Age, and in the early Iron Age villages of Chysauster and Porthmeor
in western Cornwall; and we cannot doubt that the earliest farmsteads
270
BUILDING AND BUILDING MATERIALS
Ashburton and Newton Abbot districts. Lost in the folded country of
mid-Devon, Honeychurch, though at first sight a 15th-century building,
is essentially the original Norman building: apart from the tower, the
masonry of the walls is clearly 12th-century in date, and there are other
evidences of Norman work. Marystow, in west Devon, is largely a
Norman building, though much altered at later periods. Brentor, in the
same district, is almost entirely Norman. Norman doorways survive in
later buildings at some forty places, but most numerous of all are fonts:
more than 120 belong to the 12th century, nearly all standing in much
later buildings.
There is structural evidence that a great number of Devonshire
churches were enlarged or reconstructed in the late 13th century and the
early 14th, though again not many, escaped the later wave of rebuilding
between about 1400 and 1540. Such older work tends to survive mostly
in the remoter western parts of Devon where poverty precluded any later
rebuilding. The land was generally the poorest in Devon; there was no
cloth or tin trade to help out, no time of prosperity as there so evidently
was in east and south Devon after 1400. Thus Cookbury remains a simple
little 13th-century church of nave and chancel only (though badly
restored), and Bradford, Thornbury, and Milton Damerel—all in the
same district—all betray a complete rebuilding about 1330 without much
alteration since. Bradford and Thornbury also retain good doorways from
the earlier churches (c. 1150) on the site.
The Exeter episcopal registers, which begin in 1257, provide additional
evidence of much rebuilding in the late 13th and early 14th centuries,
though this evidence—chiefly that of dedications by the bishop—must
be handled with care. Only in a limited number of cases, as at Tamerton
Foliot and South Pool in 1318, where the bishop dedicated the high altars
and three other altars in each, can we feel sure that there has been an
entire rebuilding.1 In a great number of instances the bishop’s dedication
follows some minor structural change, often long after the event. Among
the later churches of the 14th century, that of Bratton Clovelly is a noble
building, with almost cathedral-like arcades in the dove-grey stone from
Polyphant in Cornwall.
Until the 15th century, the churches of Devon were, with very few
exceptions, small and rather undistinguished buildings. There is little
that can be remotely compared with the superb work of the period 1150-
1350 that one finds so abundantly in the east Midlands and southern
Lincolnshire. It is in the last phase of Gothic architecture that south
western England is so rich, Devon even more than Cornwall. Superficially,
the unfailing recurrence of Perpendicular churches in parish after parish
is wearying and disappointing, but “ there is no English county in which
a local type of late Gothic architecture can be studied with such un
484
beech. The church (St. Mary) is beautifully situated, and has a fine W.
tower of granite. It is entirely a 15th-
cent. building, and retains its original
wagon roofs and some medieval glass
in the N. aisle. There is a good incised
slate monument to John Richards
(1634)
TALATON (j6) lies in a neat, park
like landscape. The church (St. James)
was rebuilt, except the tower, porch, E.
wall, and vestry in 1859-60, but is still
worth seeing. The W. tower is good.
There are excellent wagon roofs with
carved ribs and bosses, a few medieval
bench-ends, and a fine 15th-cent.
screen.
Escot, first recorded in 1227, is built
on the site of Sir Walter Yonge’s
mansion, finished c. 1688. There is a
tradition that John Locke, the philo
sopher, often visited Yonge at Escot,
and that he planted certain clumps of
beeches in the park. The present house
was built about 1810. Escot was formed
into a separate ecclesiastical parish in
1840. The parish church (St. Philip
and St. James) was built at the cost of
Sir John Kennaway in 1838.
TAMERTON FOLIOT (c9) is a large
village at the head of Tamerton Lake,
a creek two miles long which opens into
the Tamar. Although one can reach it
by one of the frequent Plymouth Cor
poration buses, and it is steadily being
approached by the suburbs of the city,
it is a place of great interest and much
beautiful scenery.
The Celtic saints Indract and
Dominic, and all their company, landed
in the closing years of the 6th cent, at a
port called Tamerunta, which can only be
Tamerton Foliot. St. Budoc, too,
landed in the same creek, and founded
a church at Budshead (now in St.
Budeaux).
TALATON—TAMERTON FOLIOT
The manor of Tamerton had come to
the Foliots by King Stephen’s time
(1135-54), according to Risdon, when
Sampson Foliot made his dwelling at
Warleigh, close to the confluence of
Tavy and Tamar. Warleigh may have
been a watch-place (OE weard), when
Cornwall was still unconquered, War
leigh Point being admirably suited to
that purpose. It came to the Cople-
stones by marriage in 1472. At some
time in the 16th cent, the Coplestones
left their ancestral home of Coplestone,
near Crediton, preferring to live in this
beautiful spot by the tidal waters of the
Tavy, and here they rebuilt the ancient
Foliot house towards the end of the
century. The S. (principal) front of the
house still keeps in the main its Eliza
bethan elevation, but the house was
extensively remodelled in the late 18th
cent, and early 19th, and part of it is
in a Strawberry Hill Gothic style. It
is now a hospital. Warleigh possesses
one of the few dovecotes to be found in
Devon, a circular structure of brick
with over 500 nest-holes, c. 1600 in date.
Blaxton or Blackstone was a Domes
day manor. The ferry across the Tavy,
from here to Bere Ferrers, is referred to
as early as 1263.
Maristow, now a large mansion in a
park, was originally “ Martin’s-stow.”
There was a quay here in the 13th cent.
We read in 1294 of silver being shipped
here, from the Bere Ferrers mines over
the river, up to London. The present
house dates mainly from 1740. The
Maristow estate was bought for £65,000
by Sir Manasseh Lopes in 1798 from the
Heywood heiresses, and has continued
in the Lopes family (Lords Roborough)
since. The house, in exceedingly beauti
ful grounds, is now a home for aged
clergy.
Ashleigh Barton is a late 15th cent.-
17th-cent. farmhouse. It has a plaster
TAVISTOCK
overmantel depicting the sacrifice of
Isaac, similar to the one at Alston (in
Malborough).
Tamerton Foliot church (St. Mary)
is chiefly 15th-cent., much rebuilt.
There are some interesting monuments.
That to a Gorges of Warleigh and
his wife is I4th-cent., with two good
effigies.
The monument to John
Coplestone of Warleigh and his wife,
erected 1617, depicts two kneeling
figures facing each other, with their
ten children kneeling below.
Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of London
(1163-87) and the great opponent of
Becket, was probably born at War
leigh. He exercised great influence over
Henry II until his death in 1187.
TAVISTOCK (c8) is the most delight
ful town in West Devon, and perhaps
the most attractive of all the inland
towns of the county. Much of it is built
of a green volcanic ash from quarries
at Hurdwick, about 1 1/2 m. N. of the
town, a stone which also appears fre
quently in the medieval churches of the
surrounding countryside. The town
stands mostly on the N. side of the river
Tavy, itself a decorative feature of the
town-scene, and at the E. end of a large
parish—known as Tavistock Hamlets—
which extends all the way to the Tamar.
The scenery of the parish is of great
variety and beauty, not excluding the
abandoned mining landscape at Blanch-
down on the W., above the Tamar.
This is another of those great Devon
shire parishes, so full of views, attractive
old houses, and fascinating history, in
which one can happily spend a week of
exploration. Tavistock has, too, been
fortunate in its historians. Few aspects
of its varied history have not been
adequately dealt with (see the Biblio
graphy).
The town is essentially the product of
485
its two owners: Tavistock Abbey from
the 10th cent, to the 16th, and the earls
and dukes of Bedford from the 16th
cent, to the 20th. The abbey created
the town; the Russells gave it its
present appearance and character.
Between them they owned the town
from 974 until 1911.
A small community existed here
before the abbey came. On the hillside
about 1 m. NE. of the town is an
irregular earthwork known as the
Trendle, which has yielded evidence of
a late Celtic settlement. Later, possibly
in the early 8th cent., the Saxons
occupied the lower ground beside the
brawling Tavy, and founded the stoc
that gives the place its name. By the
time the Benedictine Abbey was
founded about the year 974, a hamlet
existed at Tavistock, with its own
chapel, which stood near the NW.
corner of the present inner market.
The establishment of the abbey,
which became the largest and wealthiest
in the South-West, naturally gave a great
impetus to the village. In 1105 the abbot
obtained for it a weekly market, which
is still held on Fridays, and in 1116 a
three-day fair was added, on the eve,
feast, and morrow of St. Rumon (29-31
August). Some time before 1185, pro
bably during the abbacy of Walter
(1155-68), the final step was taken of
detaching an area of some 325 acres
from the vast rural manor in order to
set up. a borough. The immediate
stimulus to the creation of a borough
was almost certainly the “tin rush” of
these years when the virgin deposits on
the SW. edge of Dartmoor, not many
miles away, proved to be the largest
European source of tin. So began the
borough of Tavistock which continued
uninterruptedly until it was deprived
of its municipal status in 1885, and so
began its equally long, but considerably

Robert Gorges(c. 1595 – late 1620s)^[1]was a captain in the Royal Navy and briefly Governor-General of New England from 1623 to 1624. He was the son of Sir Ferdinando Gorges. After having served in the Venetian wars, Gorges was given a commission as Governor-General of New England and emigrated to modern Weymouth, Massachusetts, in 1623, building his settlement on the site of the failed Wessagusset Colony.

At the time of the founding of Gorges' settlement, the English explorer Capt.Francis Westwas named admiral of thePlymouth Council for New Englandto advise him, along with another English explorer and navalCaptain,Christopher Levett, who was attempting a settlement at Portland, Maine, which also later failed. Levett was named to advise Gorges as the governor of the Plymouth Colony.

The arrangement was not satisfactory. Apparently frustrated by the pace of settlement and an obdurate attitude of the new colonists towards English interference,^[3]Capt. Gorges returned to England in the spring of 1624.^[4]Several of his settlers turned up later at the house Levett had built on what is todayHouse IslandinCasco Bay,Maine. Gorges died sometime in the 1620s; his brother John had taken over the Gorges claims by 1629.

Thomas Weston(1584 –c.1647) was a London merchant who first became involved with the Leiden Separatists who settled Plymouth Colony in 1620 and became known as the Pilgrims.

Budockshed (alias Budshead, Budeokshead, Budokeside etc.) is a historic estate and electoral ward in the parish of St Budeaux, in Plymouth, Devon.

History

It was for fourteen generations the seat of the de Budockshed family which took its name from the estate. It then passed to the Gorges family of Wraxall, in Somerset, near Bristol, and was sold by Sir Arthur Gorges to the Trevill family, wealthy merchants from Plymouth. The mansion house of the Trevills was demolished in the early 19th century, and only ruins survive, namely of a few outer walls and granite arches. Rogers wrote: "The venerable home of the Budocksheds has been destroyed, but two fine old barns - one of grand proportions - and a picturesque granite gateway, still remain to attest its aforetime importance". A monument to the Gorges family survives in Saint Budeaux Church.

De Budockshed

Arms of de Budockshed: Sable, three fusils in fess between three buck's faces argent

The arms of de Budockshed were:Sable, three fusils in fess between three buck's faces argent, with crest:A moor's head affrontée proper, orA stag's head erased argent. The early descent is given by Pole as follows:

Alan de Budockshed, living at Budockshed in 1242

Nicholas de Budockshed, successor

Alan de Budockshed, successor

William de Budockshed, successor

Nicholas de Budockshed, successor

Thomas de Budockshed, who married a certain Elizabeth

Nicholas de Budockshed, son, who married Cecily Trevalrand, daughter and heiress of Henry Trevalrand (aliasMorton), by whom he had two sons, including Walter de Budockshed (whom Pole states to have been ancestor of the Basset family of Devonshire, which does not agree with the Heraldic Visitations of Devon)

William de Budockshed, son and heir, who married Jone Prous, daughter and heiress of Richard Prous of Chagford in Devon. According to the Heraldic Visitations of Devon, his younger son was Walter de Budockshed, whose granddaughter Elizabeth de Budockshed married Sir John Basset of Tehidy in Cornwall, of the Basset family of Devonshire and Cornwall.

Thomas de Budockshed, son, who married Jone Trencrek, daughter and heiress of John Trencrek of Trenhall

Robert de Budockshed, son, who married Anne Pomeroy, daughter of Sir Thomas Pomeroy (died 1446), feudal baron of Berry Pomeroy in Devon, Sheriff of Devon in 1427

Thomas de Budockshed, son, who married Margaret Halwell, daughter of Sir John Halwell

Anthony de Budockshed, son, who married Elizabeth Strode, daughter of William Strode of Parham in Dorset, a junior branch of the Strode family of Newnham in Devon

Roger Budockshed (died 1576/7), son, who married Frances Champernowne, third daughter of Sir Philip Champernowne (1479–1545) of Modbury, Sheriff of Devon in 1527. Her elder sister Joan Champernowne was the wife of Sir Anthony Denny ,Groom of the Stool to King Henry VIII and her brother John Champernowne was married to Katherine Blount, a daughter of the courtier William Blount, 4th Baron Mountjoy (c. 1478 – 1534),KG, one of the wealthiest English nobles of his time. Roger Budockshed left surviving children: one son, Phillip Budockshed, and three daughters.

Phillip Budockshed (died 1570), son, who having married Margery Smith, daughter of Robert Smith of Tregonyke in Cornwall, died without children, leaving his three surviving sisters as co-heiresses:

Wenefride Budockshed, wife of Sir William Gorges (died 1538), whose share of her paternal inheritance was Budockshed

Elizabeth Budockshed, wife of John Amidas of Plymouth

Agnes Budockshed, wife of Oliver Hill of Shilston

Gorges

Arms of Gorges (modern):Lozengy or and azure, a chevron gules. These arms resulted from the famous 1347 heraldry case of Warbelton v Gorges.

Sir William Gorges (died 1538), who married Winifred Budockshed, heiress of Budockshed. He was a Vice-Admiral, Deputy of Ireland, and a Gentleman Pensioner of Queen Elizabeth, a member of the Gorges family of Wraxall in Somerset, which was in fact the Russell family, descended in the male line from the Russell family of Dyrham in Gloucestershire and Kingston Russell in Dorset, but which adopted the surname Gorges in compliance with a maternal inheritance. The matter is explained in the important 14th-century heraldic case of Warbelton v Gorges. By Winifred he had three sons:

Tristram Gorges;

SirArthur Gorges (c. 1569 – 1625);

Sir Edward Gorges;

Tristram Gorges, son and heir of his mother, from whom he inherited Budockshed, married Elizabeth Cole, daughter of Martin Cole of Cole-Anger, by whom he had four daughters (two of whom married Courtenays of the Landrake descent, and another Trelawney) and one son.

William Gorges, son and heir, who died childless. He disinherited his sisters and bequeathed Budockshed to his uncle Sir Arthur Gorges.Sir Arthur Gorges (c. 1569 – 1625), uncle, of Chelsea in Middlesex, who sold the estate to the Trevill family of Plymouth, prosperous merchants.

Gorges monument, St Budeaux

1890 drawing of strapworkreredos of the Gorges monument in St Budeaux Church, with arms of Gorges quartering Cole

In St Budeaux Church survives a beautiful monument to the Gorges family, a high altar tomb situated in theBudockshed Aisle, at the east end of the north aisle, with pillars at the angles, the cover-stone of slate finely carved, with a reredos of exquisite Elizabethan strapwork design. The slate slab and front and sides of the altar tomb displays coats of arms as follows: 1:Sable, three fusils in fess between three stags' faces argent; Crest:A moor's head affrontée proper(Budockshed); 2: Quarterly, 1 and 4:Lozengy or and azure, a chevron gules, a crescent for difference(Gorges); 2 and 3:Argent, a bull passant sable within a bordure of the second bezantée(Cole); 3: Gorges, with crest:A greyhound's head couped at the shoulders and collared with crescent for difference; 4: Gorges and Budockshed quarterly; 5: Budockshed, with crest. The original inscription, which was probably gilded on it, had disappeared, but the sculptured date, 1600, remains. The monument had become greatly dilapidated, but was restored in 1881, with the following inscription:

"Roger Budockshead of Budockshead Esquire ob: 1576; Sir William Gorges Kn: ob: 1583; Dame Winifred Gorges, ob: 1599; Tristram Gorges of Budockshead Esq: ob: 1607; Mrs. Elizabeth Gorges ob: 1607; Restored 1881 chiefly at the expense of the Historical Society and Citizens of the state of Maine, U.S.A., in memory of Sir Ferdinando Gorges the first Proprietor and Governor of that Province. A.D. 1635, aided by some connections of the Gorges family in England".

Trevill

In the Budockshed aisle of St Budeaux Church is a monument to the Trevill family inscribed as follows:

"Here Lyeth Bvried the Body of Richard Trevill, Esqr., who died Avgvst the XXVI., 1648. Aged 73. Here Lyeth Bvried the Bodyes of Richard Trevill, Esqr., Nephew and Heire of the Aforesaid Richard, who died April the 4th, 1662. Aged 51. And also of Mary his Wife, who died the XXV. day of Febrvary, 1663. Aged 57. Here Lyeth Bvried the Body of Richard Trevill, Esq., Sonn of the said Richard and Mary, who died Janvary the XIX. 1665. Aged 19. This Monvment was Erected by William Trevill, of Bvtshead, Esq., in the year of ovr Lord 1667, to Perpetuate ye memorie of his Worshipfull Predecessors and Relations here buried.

The Trevill family is memorialised by a street name in Plymouth. In St Budeaux Church, below an elaborate monument to earlier members of the Trevill family, is a ledger stone inscribed as follows:

"Also Here Lyeth The Body of William Trevill of Butshead, Esq., Father of Lethbridge Trevill, who departed this Life the 18th Day of May, 1680. Also Here Lyeth the Body of Lethbridge Trevill, Son of William Trevill of Butshead, Esq., who departed this Life 27th of February, 1699".

SX46SE ROCHFORD CRESCENT
740-1/2/625 (North side (off)) 25/01/54 St Budeaux, Ernesettle Budshead: Remains of Mansion and Outbuildings
(Formerly Listed as: ST BUDEAUX Remains of Mansion at Budshead. Remains of Outhouses)

Remains of mansion, now retained as picturesque ruins in a public space. C16 and C17, was the seat of the Gorges family, this house was largely demolished and a farmhouse was built in the early 19th century now demolished and the remains of the house further reduced since 1975. Local rubble and dressed granite or volcanic stone. Walls surrounding a large square courtyard and further walls on 3 sides of an irregular forecourt. There is a through-passage alignment from front to rear. The embattled and buttressed C16 front doorway is attached to a very thick embattled curtain wall on its left and the 4-centred arched doorway is heavily moulded and has carved spandrels and a square hoodmould. The detached doorway on the right of the forecourt is the former porch doorway which was at the front of the C19 house. This feature has moulded coping above a square hoodmould and the moulded 4-centred arched doorway has carved spandrels and a cable moulding surrounding the tympanum. The wide doorway at the back of the forecourt seems to be a reconstruction and incorporates similar cable moulding. The moulded doorway at the rear has a 2-centred arch and the whole feature is probably re-set or re-assembled.
There are the foundations of the former barn nearby and there is a cider-pressing base re-used as a seat. HISTORY: Sir Ferdinand Gorges was appointed 1st Governor of Maine in 1635. The house later came into the possession of the Trelawneys, and Sir Harry Trelawney, ADC to the Duke of Marlborough, specialised in ornamental gardens here. The remains on this site suggest that Budshead was once a very important house with fine architectural detail.
The Remains of Outbuildings were listed on 01/05/75.

St Mary’s Church, Tamerton Foliot — A Historical Overview

1. Origins and Early Foundation (12th century and earlier) The church dates from the 12th century, placing its origins firmly in the Norman period.

It is thought to stand on the site of an earlier religious building, possibly founded by St Indract, an obscure early medieval saint associated with West Country traditions.

This suggests the site may have had pre-Conquest ecclesiastical significance, potentially even earlier.

2. Medieval Expansion (14th–15th centuries)

The most striking medieval feature is the 78‑foot (24 m) Perpendicular-style tower, added around 1440.

This aligns with a wave of tower-building across Devon in the 15th century.

The church originally contained effigies of the Gorges family, lords of the manor in the 13th–14th centuries.

These effigies have suffered damage over time, especially in later fires.

3. The Copleston and Gorges Connections

St Mary’s is unusually rich in manorial funerary history:

Gorges effigies(14th–15th c.)

One recumbent knight is believed to be either William de Gorges (d. 1346)or John Gorges of Warleigh.

The knight originally bore the Gorges “gurges” arms(a blue whirlpool), now lost. en.wikipedia.org

Copleston monuments(16th–17th c.)

The Coplestons inherited the manor through the Bonville line.

The most important monument is that of John IV Copleston (1546/9–1608)and his wife Susanna Pollard, erected in 1617.

The Latin inscription survives and is quoted in full on the Wikipedia page. en.wikipedia.org

These monuments make the church a key site for studying Devon gentry funerary sculpture.

4. Fires and Restoration

St Mary’s has suffered multiple firesover its history.

The most recent major fire occurred in 1981, when the roof of the north aisle collapsed, damaging the medieval effigies. en.wikipedia.org

Much of the church fabric was renewed in the 19th century, consistent with Victorian restoration trends across Devon.

5. Bells and Tower

The tower contains a peal of six bells, a typical complement for a Devon parish church of its size.

Bellringing continues today,

6. The Copleston Oak

Just outside the eastern boundary of the churchyard stands the Copleston Oak, a hollow oak believed to date from the 17th century.

It is associated with the dramatic story of John IV Copleston, who allegedly murdered his godson near the church — a tale preserved by the antiquarian John Prince. en.wikipedia.org

The oak is a rare survival of a manorial boundary or meeting tree.

7. Later History and Parish Life

The church remained the centre of the manorial and village communitythrough the Copleston, Bampfylde, and Radcliffe ownerships of the manor.

Today it is an active parish church with regular services ,

Summary TimelinePeriodEventPre‑12th c.Possible early Christian site linked to St Indract12th c.First stone church builtc.1440Tower added in Perpendicular style14th–15th c.Gorges effigies installed1470s–1600sCopleston family monuments and burials19th c.Major Victorian restoration1981Fire damages north aisle and effigiesTodayActive parish church with bellringing and community eventsIf you want, I can also produce:

CHAPTER XXIV.
PLYMOUTH, DEVONPORT, AND STONEHOUSE.
The recorded history of Plymouth cannot be traced much farther than the Norman Conquest. The town finds no mention in the Saxon Chronicle. Risdon, indeed, citing the life of St. Indractus, tells us that by the Saxons it was named Tamarweorth, which is much more likely, if the reference has any historic value, to be the Saxon name of what is now Drake’s Island—‘ the Island of the Tamar.’ Leland also asserts that much of what afterwards came to be called Plymouth was held by the
canons of the ancient Saxon college of Plympton, which Bishop Warelwast made the foundation of the famous Plympton Priory. But these statements have no authority; and the earliest undoubted and distinct mention we have of Plymouth is as the Sutton of 'Domesday,’ held by William in succession to the Confessor, an insignificant manor, with an enumerated population of 7 only. It was many a long year after this that the manor was granted by the Crown to the Valletorts, and by them in part to the monks of Plympton; and that mainly by the fostering care of the prior and his brethren, though largely as the result of independent effort, the foundations of the chief centre of population of the West were laid. ' Domesday ’ affords the materials for a striking comparison between past and present. The eight manors, which included what is now the great triple community of the three towns of Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse, with their suburban area, had in 1086 an enumerated population of 61, and were valued at £7 15s. annually. The population is now 150,000, and the annual value £380,000. In eight centuries the population has increased 2,500 times, and the value nearly 5,000. This is the most remarkable contrast Devon has to show.

But the tale of the early days of Plymouth would be incomplete if we stopped here. Plymouth herself may be this mere infant of some eight centuries’ growth; but the magnificent harbour to which she owes her birth had played its part in the national life, such as that was, many a long year before the Norman Conquest; and for the first settlement on its shores we must go back at least to the days of the ancient Keltic civilization, which preceded the coming of the Roman, and in the West was never
supplanted by him. The eastern shores of Plymouth Sound, in the neighbourhood of Staddon Heights, have yielded abundant traces of the presence of a comparatively dense and cultured population. Mount Batten has produced examples of the earliest and latest British coinage in gold, silver, and copper; and in an ancient cemetery hard by were found a number of articles of bronze—the final and most finished illustrations of the elder pre-Roman civilization of the land. Here was the Stadio Deuentia. of the Ravennat. Nay, the prehistoric dates go farther yet. Not only are worked flints of rude type found on the heights on either side of Plymouth Sound, but there was found beneath an ancient house in one of the oldest streets of Plymouth the remains of a kitchen midden, and below them a singular example of urn burial. Again, the oldest name of the promontorial district  the east of Plymouth, now called Cattedown, is Hingston, or Hangstone—Stonehenge reversed ; and the rude sketch map of the coasts, made in the reign of Henry VIII. in connection with his schemes of fortification, depicts what appears intended for a hanging stone,’ or cromlech. There is no evidence of the position of Plymouth in the Roman era. With the exception of a few scattered coins, hardly a score in all, found at various points in the neighbourhood, the Romans have left no traces of their visits here. True, the remains of a Roman galley are said to have been found silted up near Plympton, but the
authority for its identification is not clear. There is no means whatever of linking on the Saxon Sutton of ‘ Domesday ’ with the Keltic settlement of Staddon (the direct Saxon continuant of which was probably the once fortified village of Plymstock), unless we are content to fall back upon myth and legend, and these will carry us very much farther afield. There seems no reason for questioning the honesty of Geoffrey of Monmouth when he states that he is reproducing an ancient record brought from Brittany; and while he did not invent the story of Brutus the Trojan, there must have been some reason for associating the Hoe at Plymouth with the legendary combat of Corinaeus and Goemagot, and perpetuating the memory of the. association by cutting the ‘ effigies ’ of the two champions in the greensward there, renewed for centuries at the cost of the Corporation. But while either Geoffrey or one of his editors erred seriously in identifying the Hamo’s Port, which finds such frequent mention in his Chronicle ’ as the chief port of Western Britain, with Southampton, on the single score of the ‘ ham ’ common to both, these references do appear to point somewhat definitely to a regular use in the Keltic period of the estuary of the Tamar for British maritime expeditions, seeing that it has descended to us at the present day as the Hamoaze. Hamo’s Port is made the fitting centre by Geoffrey ofsome of the most stirring scenes in the traditional national life, and it is the Hamoaze that best suits the references.
Plymouth has been treated as one of the ports to which the Phoenicians traded in quest of tin. It may have been so, but there is no proof. It has been suggested further that the many-named little islet in the Sound, probably the true Tamarweorth, subsequently St. Michael’s, Tristram’s, St. Nicholas’s, and now Drake’s Island, was the Ictis of Diodorus Siculus. To that we may give a distinct denial. Thus, all we really know with certainty of the origin of Plymouth—this important factor in the general history of the country—is, that whilst the shores of the Sound have been peopled, perhaps continuously, from far-distant prehistoric times, at the date of the Norman Conquest its place was occupied by a tiny hamlet of the name of Sutton. There is, indeed, good evidence that the neighbourhood, if not the actual site, was even then of some importance. Plymouth is the only locality in Devon that has so far yielded traces of the Teutonic ‘mark’—certain lands within the borough which retained a very complicated ownership until the present day, being noted in ancient deeds as ‘ landscore lands,’ and as held in landscore tenure. Moreover, while the borders of the Sound do not appear to have afforded any special spoil to the Danes when they sailed up the Tamar and Tavy and burnt Tavistock—Wembury, on its eastern shore, at the mouth of the Yealm, seems the most likely scene of the Danish defeat in 851 by the Ealderman of Devon; though Okenbury on the Erme,
and Wickaborough in Berry Pomeroy, are also candidates for identification as the place which has come down to us in the ‘ Saxon Chronicle ’ as Wiganbeorche. Why the infant Plymouth was called Sutton=Southtown, has never been clearly made out; but the older part of the borough, which still bears the name of " Old Town," preserved in Old Town Street, was apparently known by the same title. It was not until the year 1439 that the familiar Plymouth supplanted the older form, though it had been in occasional use at least a century before. The growth of the community was very rapid. Leland states that in the latter part of the twelfth century it was still a mene thing as an Inhabitation for fischars.’ And an official inquiry made in 1318 by the Sheriff of the county, records that prior to the foundation of the ‘ ville of Sutton,’ there was a place on the shores of the ancient creek, now harbour, of Sutton Pool, where the fishermen used to sell their fish. This must have been long anterior to the present market rights, which date from 1254. Not until the manor passed from the Crown to the Valletorts did the town begin to grow. They made it their occasional residence, and gave freely of their land to the Priory of Plympton. Successive priors then encouraged settlement, and hence by the side of the original " Old Town,’ distinguished as Sutton Valletort or Vawter, there grew up the new town of Sutton Prior, which speedily distanced its elder sister. Rapid was the growth when prosperity fairly set in. While the original foundation of the mother church of St. Andrew certainly dates well back in the twelfth century, the Carmelites established themselves in the town in 1313, the Franciscans were not very much later, and the Dominicans were also speedily represented. To the siege of Calais in 1346, Plymouth sent more ships and men than any other town save Dartmouth, Yarmouth, and Fowey. And the latter part of the fourteenth century found Plymouth one of the best known and most thriving
ports in England, with a corporation of some kind bearing rule, and with so large a population that the Subsidy Roll of 1377 records a taxable inhabitancy of 4,837, and thus gives it the rank of the fourth town in the kingdom, London, York, and Bristol alone preceding. In these early days of the national life no town advanced with such rapid strides; in later centuries no provincial community has had more important links with the national history. But all was not quiet progress. The need of defensive
works was' recognised at least as early as the reign of Richard II.; and the " Town Ligger ’ records that the place was burnt three times by the French and Bretons, in 1377, 1400, and 1403. But these were not the only occasions on which it was assailed; nor need this excite wonder, seeing that the port was made the headquarters of so many hostile armaments in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The first great fleet recorded as sailing from its waters is one of 325 vessels, in 1287, for Guienne. The Black Prince made Plymouth the centre of his operations against France, and sailed thence in 1355 on the expedition which was crowned by the victory of Poictiers. Retaliation was therefore natural; and the attempts were even more frequent than the municipal annals record. Thus, in 1339, the French fired the town, but were repulsed by Hugh Courtenay, Earl of Devon; in 1350 they tried again, but were only able to destroy some ‘ farms and fair places.’ In 1400, the fleet of James
de Bourbon, after doing considerable damage, was assailed and partially destroyed by a violent storm. The worst invasion, and the last, was that of a body of Bretons under the Sieur du Chastel, in 1403. No less than 600 houses were then burnt, the greater part of the town sacked, and many of the inhabitants taken prisoners. The chief scene of the ravages of the invaders has been distinguished to this day by the name of Briton Side. There is good evidence, although successive fires have destroyed all the earlier records of the town, that after this the prosperity of Plymouth waned. In 1439-40, how ever, the town was formally incorporated by Act of Parliament, and again began to thrive. The incorporation was really the extension of a much older corporation,  possibly originating with the Valletorts, for names of prepositi or mayors occur as early as 1310, and the Parliamentary representation commenced in 1298. What the Act did was to relieve the community from its dependence on the Priory ; and the burgesses thenceforth prided themselves upon belonging to the " Kinge’s towne of Plymothe,’ as their ancient seal testifies. While there is no direct proof that the town took any active part in the Wars of the Roses, there is no reason to doubt that its sympathies were Lancastrian ; for here, in 1470, did the Duke of Clarence, with the Earls of Pembroke, Warwick, and Oxford, land to excite the revolt which led to the temporary restoration of Henry VI.; and here, too, in the following year, disembarked Margaret of Anjou, on her ill-starred way to share in the final disaster of Tewkesbury. Nevertheless, Henry VII could not land at Plymouth in 1483, because of the close guard kept. The attitude of the townsfolk towards the Warbeckian insurrection is shown by two or three entries of corporate expenditure, which speak of a party being sent into Cornwall to ‘ dfend Pkyn ’—defend being used in the old and now forgotten sense of opposition. The commerce of Plymouth with France and Spain was so great at the close of this century, that the selection of the town for the disembarkation of Katherine of Aragon, in 1501, was but natural. Right heartily was she welcomed. During her stay she was the guest of a rich merchant prince named Paynter; and the Receiver’s Accounts record, among other matters, how the Corporation gave her six oxen, five-and-twenty sheep, three hogsheads of ‘ Gaston ’ and claret wine, and a pipe of ‘ Meskedell;’ while ‘ my lady pryncs ys amner ’ (almoner) had ten shillings to " wryte oure supplicacion yn Spaynysch and in latyn, and to be oure salucyt.’ Thus early did the burghers of Plymouth establish a precedent for the now inevitable address.

In the opening years of the sixteenth century Plymouth began to fit herself for her leading share in the glories of the reign of Elizabeth; and the pioneer in this work was one William Hawkins, the first prominent member of the greatest family of merchant seamen and heroes England has known. For his ‘skill in sea causes’ this William Hawkins the elder was much esteemed by Henry VIII., and he was the first Englishman who sailed a ship into the Southern Seas. He had two worthy sons. The first, another William Hawkins, was the most influential resident of Elizabethan Plymouth—a merchant and a sailor, the holder of a commission under the Prince of Conde, and, like the rest of his kinsfolk, quite as ready to fight as to trade. His son, a third William, was the founder of the East India Company’s first trading-house at Surat, and an ambassador to the Great Mogul at Agra. The most famous of the family was the second son of Henry VIII.’s favourite captain—the renowned Sir John Hawkins; the first Englishman to take a ship into the Bay of Mexico; the early friend of his relative, the redoubtable Sir Francis Drake; converted from an adventurous trader into the heroic scourge of Spain by, Spanish, treachery at San Juan de Ulloa; for many a long weary year the Treasurer of the Navy and the man to whom is due all the credit of preparing the Royal Fleet to meet the Armada; the first true friend of the British sailor; and not only the ablest captain, but the best shipwright of his time. Probably born in 1532, he died at sea in 1595 (while engaged with Drake in the expedition which proved fatal to both these great seamen), worn out by years and toil, and heartbroken by failure and by the captivity of his son, Sir Richard Hawkins—he who gained the honourable epithet of ‘the complete seaman,’ and who lingered for ten years in a Spanish prison where he obtained that release which his father had hoped to achieve. William Hawkins the elder, both his sons William and John, and his grandson Richard, represented Plymouth in Parliament, besides filling the leading places in the municipality; and while they form the most distinguished family of Elizabethan Devon, Sir John is unmistakably the chief worthy of their native Plymouth.
Plymouth was attacked, though not besieged, by the Western rebels for the restoration of Roman Catholicism in 1549. The details preserved are but meagre; and from the fact that the assault was made on the 15th of August, ten days after the defeat of the insurgents at St. Mary’s Clyst, it must have been either by an independent body or by a party of the Cornishmen on their retreat. However that may be, the town records state that they were driven out of the town on this day, with a loss of eighty prisoners. They did, however, one notable piece of damage—‘Then was our steeple burnt with all the townes evydence in the same.’ The greater portion, though not the whole, of the borough muniments were thus destroyed. The Plymouth men chased their foes into Cornwall, and brought back an unfortunate wretch with them, called in the accounts ‘ the traytour of Cornerwall,’ who was hung, drawn, and quartered on the Hoe—the central figure of a great public holiday.

The mere recital of the naval expeditions which had their origin in Plymouth in the reign of Elizabeth, and of their results, would fill a volume. It was from Plymouth that Drake sailed in 1572 on his expedition to Nombre de Dios. When he returned one Sunday in August in the following year, the news reached St. Andrew Church while the people were assembled in worship, and straightway the preacher was deserted and the good folks ran to the seaside to welcome their hero home. Still more hearty were the rejoicings when he returned after ‘ ploughing up a furrow round the world,’ his vessel laden with great store of ‘gold and silver inblocks’—solid facts which were greatly appreciated by the business-like Plymouthians. At the earliest opportunity he was made mayor; and a few years later sat in Parliament for the town. From Plymouth, too, Drake sailed in 1587 to ‘ singe the King of Spain’s beard,’ while in August, 1595, he and Hawkins sailed together on the fatal expedition to the
West Indies from which neither returned. Drake is connected with the modern life of Plymouth, by his construction of the leat or water-course through which the town is still supplied with water from the river Meavy. There was a tradition that he did this at his own cost; but recent discoveries of long-lost documents show that the work was initiated by the Corporation, planned by one Robert Lampen, and carried out at their charges, and that Drake’s relation to the scheme was that of a contractor, paid partly in cash and partly by a lease for sixty seven years of mills erected on the line of the new leat or stream. His memory is drank at the annual inspection of the waterworks by the Corporation, as that of the man—to adopt the lines under his portrait in the Guildhall— ‘Who with fresh streams refresht this Towne that first, Though kist with waters, yet did pine for' thirst.’ Plymouth—according to Prince a ‘ port so famous that it hath a kind of invitation from the commodiousness thereof to maritime noble actions ’—was the place whence Sir Walter Ralegh sent forth his fleets for the settlement of Virginia, and to which he returned broken-hearted from his last fatal expedition after the golden city of Manoa, and was apprehended by ‘Judas’ Stukely. It was the port, too, whence Sir Humphry Gilbert sailed on that voyage to Newfoundland from which he never came back; but which has left us the rich legacy of his dying words, ‘ Heaven is as near by sea as by land.’ Hence in 1589 set forth the expedition under Drake and Norris, intended to place Don Antonio on the throne of Portugal. And hence went the memorable expedition against Cadiz in 1596, of which Howard and Essex were the chief commanders, while the last of the plentiful " Knights of Cales ’ was made in Plymouth streets on the return, ‘ as the Lords General came from the sermon.
But, indeed, in these days there was, to apply the words of Carew, an " infinite swarm ’ of expeditions of one kind and another. Now and again large fleets and powerful squadrons set forth, and single ships almost daily; so we pass on to the central incident of these stirring times, the defeat of the Armada. Twice had Spanish invasion been averted by the astuteness and daring of two Plymouth seamen—for Drake, if Tavistockian by birth, was Plymouthian by adoption. Once Philip’s schemes were counteracted by the pretended treachery of Sir John Hawkins, who applied the money paid him by the Spanish King to bring over his fleet in works of defence. Once again Philip’s preparations were destroyed by Drake harrying one Spanish port after
another. And when the time of trial could no longer be delayed, again it was Plymouth, and Plymouth men, that took the foremost place. There are extant some most graphic descriptions by William Hawkins the second, who was mayor in the eventful Armada year, of the repair of vessels by night, torch-lights and cressets flaring fitfully in a gale of wind. His brother John had worked for years to bring the royal navy to efficiency; and the ships which he collected in Plymouth harbour were ‘ in such a condition,’ as Mr. Froude says, * hull, rigging, spars, and running rope, that they had no match in the world.’ They were the nucleus of a much larger gathering of volunteer craft from many a port throughout the kingdom, but chiefly from the maritime towns of the West and South. Of 190 vessels which waited in Plymouth waters to resist the boastful Spaniard, 34 only belonged to the Queen. To the volunteer levy, Plymouth supplied seven ships and a fly-boat. Though nominally under the command of Howard of Effingham, the two chief captains were Drake and Hawkins—Drake being vice-admiral, and in charge of the volunteers ; Hawkins rear-admiral, with special relations to the royal squadron. There is a much-cherished tradition that when Captain Fleming brought the news of the approach of the Armada, the leading captains were playing bowls, and that Drake insisted on the set being finished, pithily remarking, * There’s time enough to play the game out first, and thrash the Spaniards afterwards.’ No contemporary authority exists for the tradition, and even the site of the bowling-green which Plymouth undoubtedly possessed at that time is disputed; but the story so fathers itself, that we may accept it heartily without too strict an inquiry into pedigree. There was time enough to play the game, and thrash the Spaniards; and this, although contrary winds made it a work of some difficulty to get the ships to sea.

It was about four o’clock on the afternoon of the 19th of July, 1588, that news of the approach of the Armada came; and that night some of the English ships were warped out of harbour. But the Spanish fleet did not appear in sight until noon of the following day; and then began that great battle of nations which was not to end until the pride of Spain was hopelessly crushed. The only man of note who fell on the side of the English was a Plymouth sailor, Captain Cock, who joined the fleet in a vessel of his own, captured a Spaniard, and died in the moment of victory—‘cock of the game,’ as Fuller calls him. The defeat of the Armada was commemorated until within living memory in Plymouth, by the ringing of a merry peal from the bells of the old church of Saint Andrew on the Saturday night preceding the 25th of July; and on the Sunday the Corporation used to walk to church in state. Charles I. came to Plymouth in September, 1625, for the purpose of inspecting the troops gathered for the abortive expedition to Cadiz. It was an unfortunate business for the town. The fact that the King’s servants received £33 3shillings 4d. in fees was a very small matter. The great evil was that the place was crowded with the impressed soldiery to the number of some 10,000, while many had to be billeted in the neighbouring villages. Four hundred men were impressed in Devon—to a large extent the sort of scum that Falstaff so graphically describes; and whether they were good, bad, or in different, were so ill looked after by the authorities, that the greater part were but half clothed, while the want of money made them wholly starving. Most miserable was the condition of soldiery and townsfolk alike; and right glad were the Plymouthians when the King had reviewed his ‘ ragged regiments,’ and set out on his return; and when the expedition finally set sail. Worse remained behind: overcrowding and filth begat the plague, and a third of the population was swept away. 
Plymouth formed the centre of the operations for the settlement of New England and the foundation of the United States. The ‘Plymouth Company,’f or the colo
nization of North America, had its origin in the patents
granted by Elizabeth to Ralegh to settle Virginia. £40,000
were spent by him ineffectually; and five times he sent to
search for the missing colonists whom he had planted at
the ‘ City of Ralegh ’ in 1587, the settlement having been
destroyed, and the survivors adopted, according to tradi
tion, into the Hatteras tribe. His failures led, however,
to other attempts, and eventually to the incorporation by
James I. of two companies—the London Company for
the colonization of " South Virginia,’ and the Plymouth Company for the colonization of ‘North Virginia’—
214
History of Devonshire.
Virginia being used as a general term for the North
American coast. The London Company settled James
town in 1607; the attempt of the Plymouth Company to
plant a colony at the mouth of the Kennebec failed, and
thenceforward its members confined themselves to trading
and fishing. In 1620, however, a new charter was granted
them, whereby the Duke of Lennox, the Marquis of
Buckingham, the Earls of Arundel and Warwick, Sir
Ferdinando Gorges, and thirty-four others, were incorpo
rated as * the first modern and present Council established
at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting,
ruling, and governing of New England in America.’ The
grant gave. the patentees all property and control over all
North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific, between
the 40th and 48th degrees of north latitude. The ruling
spirit of this second organization was Sir Ferdinando
Gorges, long Governor of Plymouth and connected with
the Gorges of St. Bude. The monopoly was too huge for
realization. The pretensions of the patentees were laughed
to scorn and ignored. Their vast designs dwindled into a
scramble for individual interests and proprietorships ; and
the real settlement of New England was effected with
out their knowledge or intervention. The ‘ Council of
Plymouth ’ does not therefore fill a very important place
in history. The only really notable thing it did was to
grant the charter of Massachusetts, which proved so
troublesome a child, that in 1635 the Council surrendered
their charter, its members first passing particular patents
to themselves ‘ of such parts along the sea-coast as might
be sufficient for them.’ Gorges interpreted this liberally,
for he appropriated what is now Maine; and his comrade,
Mason, New Hampshire. The dissolution of the Company
was really an incident in the earlier phase of the conflict
between Charles and his Parliament—Massachusetts being
strongly Puritan and welcoming the Puritanically dis
affected ; and the leaders of the Company being Royalists
Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse,
215
and Episcopalians, absolutists by charter, and above all
things mindful of the duty of strictly attending to their
own pockets. As Sir Edward Coke told Gorges to his
face, * the ends of private gain were concealed under
cover of planting a colony.’
Before the Plymouth Company had begun its later
operation, " on the 6th day of September, 1620, thirteen
years after the first colonization of Virginia, two months
before the concession of the grand charter of Plymouth,
without any warrant from the sovereign of England,
without any useful charter from a corporate body, the
passengers in the Mayflower set sail from the waters of
Plymouth Sound for a new world.’ Bound for the Hudson,
in the territory of the London Company, they landed,
Nov. 9, in the domains of the Plymouth Association, and
there founded New Plymouth, the first permanent settle
ment in New England. The Huguenots were then at
Port Royal or Annapolis (founded 1604), the London
Company at Jamestown (1607), the Dutch at New York
(1614). It is a singular coincidence, if nothing more,
that the spot where the Pilgrims landed is called Plymouth
in 1616, in Smith’s map of New England. Probably it
had therefore been early frequented by Plymouth ships.
Whether the Pilgrims continued the old name or gave it
anew cannot now be ascertained.
A singular error, and one which it seems almost im
possible to overtake, has sprung from the departure of the
Pilgrim Fathers from Plymouth. It has been again and
again either stated or assumed that the little band of the
Mayflower were, if not Plymouth people, at least Devonians.
There is, however, not the least evidence that any one of
them belonged to the West of England, and the amplest
proof that the great majority did not. Nevertheless some
Plymouth and Devonshire men did play an important part
in the work of actual settlement. Gorges had a planta
tion on the island of Mohegan in 1621 or 1622, which
2l6
History of Devonshire.
was afterwards bought by Abraham Jennings, a Plymouth
merchant. Moses Goodyear, son-in-law of Jennings, and
Robert Trelawny, afterwards member for the town, two
other Plymouth merchants, laid the foundation of the
town of Portland; and of actual Plymouth settlers we
have John Winter, long Trelawny’s agent, and George
Cleeves, a man of great note in the new country, and as
staunch a Republican as Trelawny was a Royalist.
Massachusetts, moreover, was largely peopled from
Devon and Cornwall; and, although originating in Dor
chester, had important connections with Plymouth. Thus
in 1630 a number of intending emigrants to Massachusetts
met in the Hospital of the Poor’s Portion at Plymouth,
a recent Puritan foundation, and there formed a Congre
gational church under ‘ Master John Warham, a famous
preacher of Exeter, and Master John Maverick.’ A ship
which sailed from Plymouth in 1622 took over eighty
emigrants. In Western Maine and the lower districts of
Massachusetts, the population still largely retains the
characteristics of the men of Devon, Cornwall, Somerset,
and Dorset, and is spoken of as " the pure English race.’
" The importation in the first place was made by English
proprietors, who sent the farmers, mechanics, and ad
venturers, who lived in and about Devonshire, to cultivate
and improve their large and vacant grants.’ Massachusetts
generally, however, drew from a wider field. One Roger
Clap, of Salcombe, claims notice, as having become captain
of Boston Castle.
Since the siege of Exeter by the Conqueror, there has
been no similar event in the West of equal importance
to the siege of Plymouth by the Cavaliers. It marks an
epoch of the first importance in national as well as local
history. It was the longest and fiercest siege of these
times, and it was endured successfully to the end. After
the surrender of the army of Essex in 1644, Plymouth
was the only place that remained true to the Parliament
Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse.
217
in the entire Western Peninsula; and had the Royalist
soldiery employed in besieging it been set free by its
capture, it is certain that the struggle between the two
parties would have been greatly protracted. It is even
possible it might have had another issue. Plymouth was
the key to a good deal more than the fortunes of Devon
and Cornwall.
Although it had elected a staunch Royalist in Robert
Trelawny to the Long Parliament, the town declared on
the popular side the moment there was a prospect of
war. As early as November, 1642, such preparations had
been made by the mayor, Philip Francis, that the earthen
line, " weak and irregular,’ cast up about the town under
his directions, enabled Colonel Ruthen, or Ruthven, to
repulse an attack in force by Sir Ralph Hopton. Retiring
to Modbury, the Royalists were routed; and this success
led to Ruthven’s marching into Cornwall, to carry the
war into the enemy’s country, and to his utter defeat in
turn by Hopton at the battle of Bradock Down. This
was on the 19th of January. In the following month,
Hopton besieged Plymouth again, this time in much
greater force; and having with him such distinguished
Royalist leaders as Sir Bevil Grenville, Sir Nicholas
Slanning, Colonel Trevanion, and Lord Mohun. He was
again compelled to retire, however, by a second defeat at
Modbury, on which the Parliamentary troops of the
county had concentrated; and efforts were made, but
unavailingly, to arrange a treaty of peace for Devon and
Cornwall, and let the rest of the kingdom fight the
quarrel out for themselves. For a while there followed a
petty border warfare between Royalist Cornwall and
Roundhead Devon, which was brought to a sudden close
by the defeat of the Earl, of Stamford at Stratton, and
by the consequent eastward expedition of the Cornish-
men, which ended so fatally for their leaders—Grenville being killed at Lansdowne, Trevanion and Slanning at Bristol, and Sidney Godolphin at Chagford. Plymouth
took advantage of this period of comparative peace to
strengthen its defences.
They were soon needed. In August, 1643, the town
was thoroughly blockaded by Colonel Digby, who did his
work so well that no provisions could be brought in.
Moreover, Sir Alexander Carew, who held command of
the fort and island, the chief defences of the port, was
detected in treaty for their surrender, sent to London,
and subsequently executed. Prince Maurice took Exeter
on the 4th of September, and marched on to reduce
Plymouth. Stopping on his road to take Dartmouth,
after the method of old-fashioned warfare, the Parliament
found time to throw some 500 soldiers into Plymouth,
under Colonel Wardlaw, who proved a commander of
decision, and against whom Maurice, when he did arrive,
found it hopeless to contend. The only advantage the
Cavaliers gained was the capture, after three weeks’ in
dependent leaguer, of an outlying and, as it proved, useless
work called ‘ Mount Stamford.’ Maurice was incessant
in his efforts to reduce the obstinate town, for well-nigh
two months making almost daily assaults ; and on
Sunday, the 3rd of December, all but succeeded. The
stoutness of the defence, however, was too much for him.
The Cavaliers, some of whom had pushed on to within
pistol-shot of the walls, were routed to the cry of * God
with us!’ Hence for many a long year the bells of St.
Andrew rang in memory of the ‘ Sabbath-day fight;’ and
sermons were preached, on the foundation of a pious
Puritan widow, to hold the deliverance in lasting remem
brance. The town motto, ‘ Turris fortissima est nomen
Jehova !’ of which Plymouth is as proud as Exeter of its
‘ Semper fidelis ’—dates from this period.
Maurice raised the siege on Christmas Day, prompted
thereto partly by the appearance among his troops of the
fatal ‘ camp disease;’ but Digby continued the blockade.
Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse.
219
until placed hors de combat by a rapier-wound in the eye.
He was succeeded by Sir Richard Grenville. In like
manner, Colonel Wardlaw, worn out, was followed for a
short time in command of the garrison by Colonel Gould.
The latter died -early in 1644; and then came Colonel
Martin, a most energetic officer, who again was followed,
on his death in harness, by Colonel Kerr.
The march of Essex into the West caused the siege to
be raised; but four days after the surrender of his forces
at Boconnoc, the King himself summoned Plymouth,
and on the 10th of September sat down before the town
with a gallant armament 15,000 strong. Lord Robartes,
who had escaped with Essex and a few others in a boat
from Fowey to Plymouth, was appointed Governor on the
following day, on which the royal troops made a desperate
but unavailing assault. Neither by persuasion, threats,
nor force could Charles win his way within the stubborn
town, and accordingly he and Maurice speedily marched
off, leaving the conduct of the blockade once more in the
hands of Grenville. There was not much fighting at
Plymouth itself during the remainder of 1644; but 1645
was a very active year, and there is a valuable con
temporary record of its proceedings, so far as they have
a financial bearing, in the accounts of the Committee of
Defence, yet in the possession of the Plymouth Corpora
tion. This committee held the governorship in commis
sion when Robartes was removed by the Self-Denying
Ordinance, Colonel Kerr having chief military command.
The most desperate attempt made by Grenville was in.
January, 1645. He appears at first to have captured
three of the great outworks, and to have made his footing
good for a while in one. His attack was in force along
the line; but when he had been repulsed at all points,
save the scene of his temporary success, the captured
work was stormed from every quarter by the Plymouth
men and taken, and all who were within killed or made
220
History of Devonshire.
prisoners. Probably nearly a fourth of Grenville’s whole
force of 6,000 men was killed, wounded, or captured.
Another fight at Fort Stamford, where the garrison also
had the advantage, brought the siege practically to an
end. True, it continued in name, after Grenville’s defeat,
first under Sir John Berkeley, and then under General
Digby; but towards the close of the year we find the
garrison assuming the offensive, taking St. Budeaux
Church, which had been turned into a Cavalier garrison,
after an hour and a half’s hard fighting, in December;
surprising Kinterbury; and storming Saltash and Buck
land Abbey. On the 28th of January, 1646, the Royalists
decamped in such a hurry at the advance of Fairfax, that
they left guns, arms, and ammunition behind. The last
Cavalier garrisons in the neighbourhood were Mount
Edgcumbe, which had been held most gallantly by
Colonel Edgcumbe against repeated attacks, and which,
only when all hope was lost, surrendered to Colonel
Hammond; and Ince House, which resisted until the
29th of March. Then the " scorn ’ was taken out of the
Cavaliers who held it, by the planting in position of some
big guns.
The siege cost the town dear, though the battle had
been won. During the three years that it lasted the
parish registers record the deaths of about 1,000 soldiers,
and of 2,000 of the townsfolk beyond the death-rate
of that time. These figures do not, however, include the
losses to the garrison of those who were buried where
they fell; nor those of the besiegers, whether in the field
or by the still more fatal ‘ camp disease.’ There were many
occasions when more than 100 fell in an assault; one, at
least, when the loss was over 300. The population of
Plymouth at this date did not exceed 7,000; the deaths
due to the siege approximated at least 8,000. In three
years, therefore, a number greater than the population of
the town was swept away. The whole history of the
Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse.
221
Civil War fails to supply a parallel. Moreover, the trade
of the town was ruined, and scores of families reduced to
the greatest distress and misery. As a partial relief the
Plymouth duties were for a while taken off.
It was the undaunted spirit the town had shown that
led Charles II. to prepare for possible eventualities by
erecting the citadel—one of the finest specimens of
seventeenth-century fortification now extant in England
—upon Plymouth Hoe. And it was the merest irony of
Fate that led to the revival of the old temper under
James, and that caused Plymouth to be the first munici
pality in the kingdom to declare for William of Orange,
and this very citadel to be the first stronghold put into
his hands by its Governor, the Earl of Bath.
For something like 200 years—ever since, in fact, the
waters of the Tamar were chosen as the site of a royal
arsenal—Plymouth has mingled the characteristics of war
and trade, though at times one has predominated and
then the other. It was chiefly in consequence of the
trading importance of the port that first Winstanley’s
(1696), then Rudyerd’s (1706), Smeaton’s (1756), and
lastly, Douglass’s (1882) lighthouses were erected in turn
upon the Eddystone Reef, which lies a few miles off the
entrance of Plymouth Sound. The construction of the
great breakwater (1812-41) which stretches for a mile
across the roadstead between the opposite heights of
Maker and of Staddon, was, however, carried out for the
express purpose of protecting the vessels of the fleet.
And the forts which line the shores of the harbour, and
form a cincture round the whole of the three towns, also
bore reference to the public works, and not to any private
interests. So absorbed, however, did the town become in
privateering in the days of the great French war, that for
the time almost all legitimate trade died out, and it
required years of untiring energy to recover lost ground.
One of the first steps taken was the formation of what is now the oldest Chamber of Commerce in the kingdom; and
since then wharves and piers have been formed and docks
built, and in addition to a good foreign and large coasting
trade, Plymouth has become one of the chief mail ports
in the kingdom. The growth of the town in the present
century has been very rapid. The population is more
than five times what it was in 1801; and in the last forty
years it has considerably more than doubled. Growth has
been accompanied by reconstruction, and there is very little
left to mark the age of the community save the fine old
mother church of St. Andrew, close by which now stands
the noblest pile of municipal buildings in the West of
England. The windows of the great hall are filled with
stained glass illustrating the richly storied past of the
old town; and among the prized possessions of the Cor
poration is an old portrait of Drake, placed in the ancient
Guildhall not many years after his death. Many local
antiquities of interest are preserved in the Museum of the
Plymouth Institution, including those of Keltic date.
Plymouth has been very rich in worthies. The
Hawkinses have been already named. Sir Thomas
Edmonds, son of the * customer ’ at Plymouth (1562-1639)
became the ambassador for James I. to Brussels and
Paris, and subsequently Comptroller of the Household.
John Quick, a celebrated Puritan divine (died 1706), and
Joseph Glanvill, Prebendary of Worcester, author of
* Saducismus Triumphatus ’ (already noted), were born at
Plymouth in 1636. It was likewise the birthplace
of Dr. James Yonge (1647-1721), an early member of the
Royal Society; of Bryant the Mythologist (1715-1804),
and of Kitto (1804-1854), the deaf author.
William Elford Leach, Curator of the British Museum,
the greatest zoologist Devonshire has produced, was born
at Plymouth in 1790, and died in 1836. A year later was
born Sir William Snow Harris (died 1867), the inventor
of the system of applying lightning-conductors to ships ;
Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse.
223
and another Plymouth electrician, Jonathan Hearder
(1810-76), was blind nearly all through his scientific career.
But it is in connection with Art that the chief personal
excellence of modern Plymouth has been reached. Here
was born (1746-1831) James Northcote, R.A., pupil and
biographer of Reynolds, himself a native of what is now a
Plymouth suburb. Here Samuel Prout (1783-1852), the
most distinguished water-colour artist of the West, and
in his peculiar gifts unrivalled in the kingdom. Here the
unfortunate Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846), the
true founder of Schools of Art; here Samuel Hart, R.A.
(1806-1881), Professor of Painting, and Librarian of the
Royal Academy. And here also first saw the light Sir
Charles Lock Eastlake (1793-1866), President of the
Royal Academy, and at the time of his death Director of
the National Gallery. His first great work was a painting
of Buonaparte at the gangway of the Bellerophon in
Plymouth Sound, now in the possession of Lord Clinton.
The joint history of the triple community of Plymouth,
Devonport, and Stonehouse, has some curious features.
In name Stonehouse, the smallest of the ‘ three towns ’
is the oldest. Devonport is the youngest, but under its
earliest designation of Stoke was by far the most im
portant member of the triad, as it first appears in history
in the pages of ‘ Domesday.’ It was then the property of
Robert of Albemarle, whose name is still preserved in the
title of the parish—Stoke Damerel—and had a population
of twenty-five against the seven of Sutton and the one
villein who occupied Stanehvs under Robert the Bastard.
While hamlets were developing into the ville of Sutton,
and that into the burgh of Plymouth, and while the
building of * stane and lime ’ which named the ancient
manor of Stonehouse was growing into a walled town,
Stoke Damerel continued a mere village. It passed from
Damerells to Courtenays, Kemiells, Branscombes, and

224
History of Devonshire.
Britts, until it came to the Wises, and Sir Thomas Wise
signalized his ownership by building a stately mansion on
the craggy headland opposite the domain of the Edgcumbes,
and calling it, with that imitation which is the sincerest
flattery, " Mount Wise.’ , All but the name has long passed
into oblivion, and cannon frown and soldiers dwell where
the manor-house once stood. In 1667 Stoke was bought
by Sir William Morice, Secretary of State to Charles II.,
and some time member for Plymouth; and early in the
last century passed to its present owners, the St. Aubyns,
by the marriage of Sir John St. Aubyn to Catherine,
coheiress of the Morice family. As the whole town and
parish, with a few unimportant exceptions, belongs to the
St. Aubyns, it is now by far the most valuable manor in
the West of England.
Devonport, as a town, dates only from the reign of
William III. Though Plymouth had so long been a naval
port of resort of the first rank, it had few Government
establishments and no dockyard. Woolwich, Deptford,
and Portsmouth yards go back to the reign of Henry VIII.;
and Chatham was founded under Elizabeth., Charles II.
established Sheerness, and is credited with the intention
of creating a dockyard at Devonport, the advantages
of the harbour there having been recognised among
others by Ralegh. Until 1690, however, the royal ships
at Plymouth were wholly dependent upon the accom
modation of private yards. William of Orange saw the
need of remedying this state of things soon after he came
to the throne, for plans for a ‘ dock in the Hamoaze’ were
prepared in 1689; and in the following year a little creek
was utilized in the construction of the first basin and
dock. This was the germ from which has grown the
great naval arsenal of the West, the works of which now
all but monopolize, in one form or another, the water
side for miles along the eastern shores of the Tamar
estuary.
Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse.
225
Plymouth Dock was the original name of the new town;
and at first officers and artisans alike were accustomed to-
live in Plymouth and go to and fro their work daily. The
first dockyard was completed in 1693; but it was not
until 1700 that the first private house of the new town
was erected, a rough wooden structure at the landing
place at North Corner, which became the principal centre
whence the houses spread. There are still in this locality
a few of the original dwellings left—buildings curiously
compounded to all appearance of the cottage and the
cabin, the self - instructed architects being at times
singularly successful in transferring to the shore some of
the leading characteristics of the stern quarters of the old
Dutch-built men-of-war.
As war followed war, so the dockyard extended; and as
the dockyard extended, so the town grew; until, about
the middle of the last century, ‘ the Dock’ was enclosed by
ditch and rampart, long since improved out of existence
in favour of more massive works, in their turn so out
grown as to be practically useless. The earliest return of
the population is for the year 1733, when it was 3,361,
about half that of Plymouth. Fifty years later it was
equal to that of the elder town; and by the beginning of
the century was largely in advance, having a population
of 23,747 to the 16,040 of Plymouth and the 3,407 of
Stonehouse. While war lasted Devonport grew more
rapidly than Plymouth, the natural trade of which was
almost wholly destroyed or given up for privateer
ing. But at length commerce asserted its superiority;
and the census of 1841 showed Plymouth once more in
advance, with a preponderance which it has since in
creasingly maintained, active as the development of the
Government works has from time to time been.
Devonport was one of the large centres of population
enfranchised by the Reform Bill of 1832, when it and Stone
house were thrown together to make one constituency. It
15
226
History of Devonshire.
was incorporated as a municipality in 1837, having been
previously governed by a body of Commissioners operating
under a local Act. The name was changed from Plymouth
Dock to Devonport in 1824.
Devonport now consists of the old town ‘within the
lines;’ of the ancient village of Stoke, which has developed
into a very handsome residential suburb—the tower of
the mother church being the one antiquity the place can
boast; and of the great and growing annexe of Morice
Town or New Passage, which has enormously developed
since the commencement of the Keyham Steamyard in
1844. Keyham was the original ‘ manor-place ’ of the
Wises and their predecessors. Beyond the Keyham Yard
are now Seamen’s Barracks; and farther up the river
towards Saltash the Bull Point and Kinterbury Powder
Works and Magazines. The villages of Millbrook and
Torpoint, and to a certain extent the town of Saltash
also, on the Cornish side of the Tamar, are so far suburbs
of Devonport that they are partially inhabited by men
employed in the Government establishments.
Of the few notable points in the local history, the
blowing up in 1796 of the Amphion in harbour, when
200 lives were lost, is one of the most memorable; and in
1840 occurred the great fire in the dockyard, when the
Talavera and Minden were burnt, and large quantities of
valuable stores and naval antiquities.
Stonehouse has a history, though never yet thoroughly
worked out. The township in legal documents is called
East Stonehouse, by way of distinction from a hamlet on
the opposite side of Hamoaze at Mount Edgcumbe, named
West Stonehouse, said to have been burnt by the French
in one of their raids. Carew, writing at the end of the
sixteenth century, notes that ‘ certaine old ruines, yet
remaining, confirme the neighbours’ report." It stood
near the edge of the water at what is now called Cremyll.
Plymouth, Devonport, and Stonehouse.
227
There is no evidence to show whether West Stonehouse
was included in the manor of Stonehouse held by Robert
the Bastard at the date of the compilation of ‘ Domesday.’
Probably it was not, and East Stonehouse was really the
elder town; but Devon then, and until recently, included
Mount Edgcumbe and adjacent lands west of the Tamar.
After the Bastards the manor came to a family named
thence of Stonehouse, and from them it passed by
marriage to the Durnfords, whose heiress in turn carried
it to its present possessors, the Edgcumbes. Apart from
the building whose solid character gave the manor its
name, there is little evidence, until Stonehouse came into
the hands of the Durnfords, that it consisted of more
than the castellated mansion of its lords, with some build
ings of a monastic character, doubtfully connected with
the great Priory of Plympton. The Durnfords, however,
did their best to foster their infant town; and James
Durnford, as noted, brought down upon him the Abbot of
Buckland, as lord of the hundred of Roborough, by setting
up a pillory and tumbrel at ‘ Estonhouse ’ and holding
courts there, wherefore, 26th Henry VL, it was ordered
that the pillory and tumbrel should be ‘deposed, de-
stroyed, and removed,’ that no courts should be held by
,
Durnford which interfered with the abbot’s view of frank
pledge, and no hindrance put to the execution of the
abbot’s precepts or the action of his bailiffs, etc., in the
manor. At this time, and long afterwards, Stonehouse
to some extent came under the jurisdiction of Plymouth.
It formed part of the very extensive ancient parish of St.
Andrew (to which it is yet appendant by patronage), and
there are records of inquests being held there by a Plymouth
coroner, though it never fell within the municipal boundary.
Stonehouse was little more than a fishing village from
the time of the Durnfords until the reign of Henry VIII.,
when it grew more rapidly; so that early in the seventeenth
century, Sir William Pole describes it as a ‘convenient
15—2
228
History of Devonshire,
big town, well inhabited.’ The first trace of any corporate
authority known to exist is in a deed of the 36th of
Elizabeth,, which refers to the government of the town
being in the hands of the lord, Peter Edgcumbe, Esquire,
under rules and directions made with ‘the consent &
ffrancke agremt of xij. discrete & able psons of &
wthin the said; Towne and liberties.’ This would be
something in the nature of a select vestry; and the
government of the township continued strictly parochial
until the establishment of a Local Board of Health,
although it has a population of some 15,000. *
The ecclesiastical connection of Stonehouse with
Plymouth probably originated with the extensive rights
exercised by the Plympton Priory, which was not only
liberally endowed by the Valletorts, but 'received from :
‘John de Stanhurst ’ a grant of free fishery ‘ per totam
terram meam.’ Though this deed is not dated, it cannot
be later than Henry I.; for in the latter part of the
twelfth century the fishery is mentioned in a Valletort
grant as an ancient right. A Joel of Stonehouse was
living there in the reign of Henry HI.- The present parish church, dedicated to St. George,
replaced in the last century an ancient chapel dedicated
to St. Lawrence, the existence of which it is said can be
followed back to 1472. St. George, however, appears to
have a good claim to the dedication; for a deed, dated
12th Henry VII., mentions John Melett and Laurence
Serle as ‘ custod capell sci georgii martii de Est Stone
house ;’ and there is no trace of more than one ancient
chapel in the town. Stonehouse became the settlement
of a body of Huguenot refugees after the Revocation of
the Edict of Nantes; and for several years the chapel
was used jointly by the French and English inhabitants.
Eventually the former obtained a meeting-place of their
own, and continued to meet there until 1810, when they
became finally absorbed, as the Huguenots of Plymouth
Plymouth, .Devonport, and Stonehouse. 229
had been three years earlier, in the native population.
One of the refugees—Duval—has left his name to the
headland of Devil's Point.
There is good proof that Stonehouse was a place of
some importance in the closing years of the sixteenth
century, from the fact that an Act of Parliament was
obtained to bring into the town a supply of fresh water,
the needs of the shipping being alleged as a leading
cause. A leat, or water-course, was accordingly made,
though it did not answer the end designed. There appears
then to have been some falling off. Stonehouse had a
Royalist lord in Colonel Edgcumbe, and a tolerably
numerous Rohndhead population. Its interest was there
fore very equally divided; and it took no active part in
the great struggle. On one side lay Plymouth, garrisoned
for the Parliament—its exterior lines of defence, indeed,
included Stonehouse; on the other was Mount Edgcumbe,
held for the King. Stonehouse must have had walls of
some kind, for it had barrier-gates until 1770; but it was
not a place of any strength, and held wisely neutral.
Hence, doubtless, its choice in 1643 as the place of
meeting of the negociants of the fruitless treaty of peace
between Devon and Cornwall.
Like Devonport, Stonehouse has been to a large extent
absorbed by the action of the Government, which in one
form or another occupies the larger proportion of its
water-side.
Here the Naval Hospital, fronting the
Military Hospital at Devonport on the other side of a
creek; there the Royal William Victualling Office, the
finest pile of buildings devoted to victualling purposes in
the country; and there again forts and barracks, the
latter the headquarters of a division of Royal Marines.
What shipping-trade continues is carried on in Stone
house Pool, on the western shores of which Devonport is
attempting to utilize for commercial purposes the only
available piece of foreshore that the Government estab
lishments have left free.

PLYMOUTH
between the estuaries of Tamar and Plim. To the South 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 North East, taking in altogether an area of 13,136 acres, or rather more than 20 sqare miles. The city is essentially a union of the three towns of Plymouth on the East, Devonport on the West, and Stonehouse 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 independent centres. Few cities, if any, in Britain have such a superb site, with the blue edge of Dartmoor in full view to the North East, the Cornish hills and the noble estuary of the Tamar to the West, 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 Batten. The central section of this lime stone 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
North West. 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 North. and West. 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 South West. 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 South West 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, 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.
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-17th-century merchants houses remain. The most notable example is No. 32 New Street, which dates from circa 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. Devonport 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 re build it. Chantrey’s marble bust of

Writing in the early seventeenth century, Tristram Risdon summed up the great geographical advantage that had accelerated Plymouth's importance when he wrote:
It is not long since Plymouth was accounted a mean fishing town, until the conveniency of the haven, which, without striking sail admitteth into its bosom the tallest ships that be, where they ride safe, in either of the two rivers, to take the opportunity of the first wind.
In 1778 Stuart Amos Arnold published an eighteenth-century navigation manual called The Merchant and Seaman’s Guardian in the British Channel. In it he gave detailed instructions to navigate into the port using the ancient system of seamarks, lining up landmarks by eye to chart a course through and past hazards. In sailing into Plymouth take care of the Shovel and Tinker rocks; on the former is sixteen, on the latter seventeen feet. The mark to sail in clear of them, is to keep Plymouth old church just open to the west of the citadel wall. Sail in with this mark till you bring Withy hedge right up and down, and Drake’s island North West or open Mount Edgecombe, when you may anchor in six and seven fathom, coarse sand.
If bound for Hamoaze, take care of the Winter Rock (on which there is a beacon) that lies between Drake’s Island and the main. Go between the rock and east part of the island, and give the island a good birth. to clear the German Rock, which lies about two thirds of a cable’s length from the shore, and has a beacon on it, as soon as you are abreast of the rock, which you will know by running the stone wall on Block-house point right up and down, steer over towards Mount Edgecombe till you open the Passage point and Blockhouse point; then haul over for Stone-pool, till you have hid Drake’s island behind Block-house point. And to clear Passage-rock has a beacon on it, bring Stonehouse on the Old Gun-wharf crane; run that mark on till you bring a large fall-gate gate, that is on the hill above the Passage-house, and the highest opposite. chimnies on the Passage-house in one; then steer safely in for Hamoaze, and anchor in thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen fathom, or less water at pleasure.

These directions give a glimpse into a lost landscape, where patches of willow were significant enough to be landmarks visible from the Sound. Once moored, what might the merchant expect on arrival? A number of travel writers described seventeenth-century Plymouth, among them Celia Fiennes in her epic journey Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary in 1698. She was delighted by the appearance of the local stone, which she referred to as ‘marble’ which made Plympton ‘look white like snow’. From there she rode down the banks of the River Plym to the town itself.
Plymouth is two parishes called the .old town and the new, the houses all built of this marble and the slatt, slate at the top look like led and glisters in the sun; there are no great houses in the town; the streetes are good and clean, there is a great many though some are but narrow; they are mostly inhabited by seamen and those which have affaires on the sea, for here up to the town there is a depth of water for shipps of the first rate to ride; its great sea and dangerous by reason of the severall points of land between which the sea runs up a great way, and there are severall little islands alsoe, all which beares the tydes hard one against the other; there are two keyes the one is a broad space which leads you up into the broad streete and is used in manner of an exchange for the merchants meeting, for in this street alsoe is a fine cross and alsoe a long Market House set on stone pillars; there are several good conduits to carry the water to the town, which conveyance the famous Sir Francis Drake  which did encompass the world in Queen Elizabeth's days and landed safe at Plymouth, he gave this to the town; there are two churches in the town but nothing fine; I was in the best and saw only King Charles the First Picture at length at prayer just as its cut on the frontispiece of the Irenicum, this picture was drawn and given the Church when he was in his troubles for some piece of service shown him; the altar stands in the Chancell or railed place, but it stands table wise the length and not up against the wall; the font was of marble; there are four large Meetings of the Descenters in the town takeing in the Quakers and Anabaptists.

Although Celia Fiennes is somewhat scathing of the lack of great houses and fine churches she gives a hint of the bustle of commerce, as merchants met and traded at the exchange on New Quay, which had been built only two decades earlier. As a post-Restoration writer, her assumption that Charles 1 had given the portrait in Charles Church for some service may be politically correct rather than factual. She was impressed though by the great bulk of the
Citadel defending the town from enemies approaching by sea.

The fine and only thing in Plymouth town is the Cittadell, or Castle, which stands very high above the town, the walls and battlements round it with all their works and platforms are in very good repaire and looks nobly, all marble full of towers with stone balls on the tops and gilt on the top, the entrance being by an ascent up a hill looks very noble over 2 drawbridges, and gates, which are marble, as is the whole well carved, the gate with armory and statues all gilt and on the top 7 gold balls; the buildings within are very neate, there is a long building alsoe which is the arsnell for the arms and ammunition, and just by it a round building well secured which was for the powder; round the works is the plattform for the guns which are well mounted and very well kept.

The Citadel had been constructed in the early years of the reign of Charles II, strengthening the fortifications built during the wars with Spain. Another travel writer, Edward Daniel Clarke described Plymouth in his book A Tour Through the South of England, Wales and Part of Ireland made during the Summer of 1791. His description is beginning to sound more like the city of the early twentieth century. It is a large old town, built upon an irregular plan; its streets are narrow, confined and crowded. Like other sea ports, it is populous, and has the usual appendages of dirt and noise. The inhabitants consist chiefly of tradesmen, as the more genteel families reside at Dock, Stonehouse and in the environs. The shipping, vessels of trade etc are brought to the very heart of the town, so that a person might, with ease, leap from their prows into the streets.
Dock, more properly known as Plymouth Dock, was renamed Devonport in 1824 following a petition to the king by the inhabitants. But the friendly rivalry which dates back to its birth is still evident, immortalised by the terraces at different ends of the city’s football ground. On his tour of the area in 1791, Edward Clarke decided to head out into the countryside, which divided the Three Towns at the time. Losing his way he asked for directions and was advised to climb Stonehouse Hill where he would get his bearings. This gave him a bird’s eye view of the Three Towns prior to the Napoleonic era. At the bottom of the hill stood the little town of Stonehouse. On one side Plymouth, on the other Dock. Around, me extended the vast surface of the waters, with its vessels floating, as if, in the security of conquests, and displaying their pendants proudly to the wind. Mount Edgecumbe, peeping from its tufted groves, seemed the residence of some tutelary deity. A little spot, like a fairy island, appeared to float upon the waves. The evening became serene and mild. The marine band was playing in the barracks below while the soft notes of the music seemed to swell in the air, and vibrate upon the calm expanse of the sea. The evening gun like a clap of thunder, all of a sudden reminded me of the time I had spent there. Like islands the Three Towns of the late eighteenth century were divided by
creeks and marshes. Between the old town and Stonehouse lay Plymouth Marsh stretching as far as King Street. The marsh was home to snipe shot by the locals, but it was also the haunt of robbers, and canny travellers waited for company before crossing in convoy on the New Road, which was soon renamed Union Street. Stonehouse Creek extended almost as far as the road to Saltash, and until 1783 when Stonehouse Bridge was completed a ferry took passengers across. On the northern side of Plymouth Dock the shore of the Hamoaze was still splintered by rivulets and Moons Cove, where the Dockyard slum of Morice Town would be built. Just as Edward Clarke’s evening reverie was shattered by the cannon, so the end of the eighteenth century was splintered by war with Revolutionary France. Hundreds of ships mustered in Plymouth waters. Naval ships fitting out for the great sea battles of the Age of Nelson; troop ships loading the cannon fodder to be sacrificed on foreign battlefields; merchant vessels gathering to be escorted down the English Channel in convoys protected from the French Channel Fleet. In the eclectic mix of records surviving in the archives of the Plymouth and West Devon Record Office is the secret order for just
such a convoy. The envelope was marked ‘On His Majesty’s Service’ and in it was this letter sent to Plymouth’s Mayor John Langmead, from the admiral on board his ship Salvador del Mundi moored in the Hamoaze. It is dated 18 June 1803. I have approached His Majesty’s sloop the Sea Gull immediately to proceed and take under convoy, the trade of Plymouth, Dartmouth, Exmouth and Teignmouth which may be bound to the Downes, Hampshire. You will therefore be pleased to direct that the trade of your Port may be held in readiness to join the Convoy immediately on its appearing off. Then in a separate section attached, which is marked ‘Secret’, he gave these instructions:
The Sea Gull on her appearance off each of the aforementioned Ports will make herself known by hoisting a Dutch Jack over a French Jack at the main top Gallant mast head firing two guns. Other snapshots from Plymouth’s past can be found in letters in the city archives and in newspaper reports. These incidents, frozen in time, enable us to strip away the sounds of the modern city: the rumble of tyres, screeching engines, the treble of acceleration, the uncertain whine of deceleration; 
11

John Rennie's architectural gem, the Royal William Victualling Yard.
All was well for half a century, but in the mid nineteenth century lime juice was substituted for lemon juice in the interests of economy, as limes were available from British colonial territory in the West Indies. This was a mistake. Lime juice contains only half the vitamin C of its sister citrus the lemon.
Scurvy still killed naval men, even in the twentieth century. During Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s trek to the South Pole in 1912, it is believed that scurvy weakened his team, contributing to their deaths. Vitamin C itself was not ‘discovered’ until it was isolated in 1918.
Until the Royal William Victualling Yard opened for business in 1835, ships provisioned in Plymouth were served by a warehouse and office by Sutton Pool. The Royal William Yard covered a huge site of 16 acres. Employed within its walls were butchers, bakers and coopers (who made the barrels to store provisions while at sea). On the huge gateway into the yard from Cremyll Street there are carvings showing these trades. The slaughter houses that provided the raw material for the much reviled salted meat only served the yard for just over two decades, after which animals were killed in the brewhouse. Beer was never in fact brewed there, because the beer ration was stopped in 1830, even before the yard was completed, but during the
eighteenth century sailors were allocated a gallon of strong beer a day. In 1755 Admiral Edward Hawke indulged in a protracted battle with the victualling department at Plymouth about the quality of beer, which was supplied because it remained palatable longer than water, although beer brewed in summer did not keep well. He wrote to the Admiralty:
The beer which came off in the two tenders from Plymouth was very bad; so that I was obliged to direct it to be expended immediately: and if what is now coming should prove to be the same, the squadron will be greatly distressed, as good beer is the best preservative of health among new-raised men. Not withstanding the promise of the contractors for slops, to supply better, I find what , were issued to the ships at their coming out to be of the same quality with those complained of: and yet our wants oblige us to make use of them, which I beg their Lordships will please to give directions for effectually remedying hereafter. All naval provisioning was governed, not by the health of the seamen, but by the ability to preserve food for long voyages. Salt had been the preservative of choice for centuries, but salt beef and pork still became putrid and hardened during the voyage until they were inedible. In fact sailors used to carve scrimshaw, ornaments usually carved from bone or shell, from their ration!
Bad naval health was largely attributable to the poor quality of provisions. The Royal Navy Man’s Advocate, written by William Thompson and published in 1757, was an expose of navy ‘vittles’. Its author was victimised and driven out of the navy because of what he wrote and published: The seamen in the King’s Ships have made buttons for their Jackets and Trowsers by the Cheese they were served with, having preferred it by reason of its tough and durable quality, to buttons made of common metal; and that Carpenters in the Navy-Service have made Truckles [wheel or pulleys] to their Ship’s flagstaffs with whole Cheeses, which have stood the weather equally with any timber.... That their bread has been so full of large black-headed maggots and that they have so nauseated the thoughts of it, as to be obliged to shut their eyes to confine that sense from being offended before they could bring their minds into a resolution of consuming it. That their beer has stunk as abominably as the foul stagnant water which is pumped out of many cellars in London at midnight hour; and that they were under a necessity of shutting their eyes, and stopping their breath by holding their noses before they could conquer their aversion, so as to prevail upon themselves in their extreme necessities to drink it . . . That the pork which the Fleet under the command of the late Admiral Boscawen was served with, was so rotten, that when boiled it wasted away to mere rags and crumbs, so that it could be eaten with a spoon, and that when the liquor it had been boiled in was drawn off, it flowed out of the cock of the ship’s boiler like curds and whey: it was also so nauseous that it made the men sick who did eat of it; and resolving to fast rather than eat any more of it, they have thrown it privately out of their ship’s port-holes to prevent being discovered by the officers of the ship.
Fortunately those who ate below decks did so largely in the dark!
The basic diet was supplemented by the infamous ship’s biscuit, which became so hard that it had to be soaked. Lurking within the biscuit was extra protein in the form of weevils; a sharp tap would usually dislodge them, but would also reduce the biscuit to a pile of crumbs. Ingenious seamen developed ways of ridding themselves of weevils, by catching fish, which they laid on deck alongside the biscuits. Attracted by the prospect of this fresher sustenance, the weevils crept over to feast on the fish. These legendary ship’s biscuits were six inches across and were baked at the Royal William Yard. Great casks of water were loaded into the holds prior to a voyage, although this inevitably deteriorated during the voyage as green scum formed
on the surface. Although desalination was an obvious source of water for sailing ships and the technology had been developed by Plymouth apothecary William Cookworthy among others, it was not used. The taste of rancid water was improved by the one essential ingredient of their daily life of which sailors did approve - rum. It was Admiral Edward Vernon, commander of the West Indies fleet in 1740, who concocted the recipe of half a pint of rum diluted with two pints of water. First issued on 14 August 1740, this concoction was known as grog. It was doled out at lunchtime leaving inebriated crewmen often incapable of work in the afternoons. It was the calories delivered by this alcoholic beverage which gave sailors most of the energy required for a job which was physically demanding: an eighteenth-century sailor needed 4,500 calories daily to enable him to climb the rigging, haulheavy loads and man a ship. Masts were up to 130 feet high and there was up

Plymouth. To stand on Plymouth Hoe is to see the finest spectacle on our English coast, and to feel the thrill of something eternal in our race. From the great heights of Devon the waters gather into two rivers which find their way to the sea and enfold in their arms this wondrous place that ever since we sailed the seas has meant so much to us. Drake and the Mayflower—it is enough; we have only to let our thoughts run back to the wonderful years when Drake was coming in and the Mayflower was going out. She is the mother of cities, and her children are gathered far and wide. They have given her name to forty Plymouths in four corners of the earth. Her fame befits her splendour, for every traveller knows that she is beautiful to see. Her name is on all our tongues, for it belongs to history. Her memory lives with all who have passed this way, for the spectacle of this town with three communities in one, this city that rises on a rock 150 feet above the waves, is one of those few sights of the world that men do not forget. Like the Statue of Liberty, the Pyramids, or the Dome of St Paul’s, Nature has made her wonderful to see, and man has made her unforgettable. Here life has been going on since the days before history. There were settlers here then, and it is known that the Phoenicians traded with them for tin. After them the Romans worked the tin mines and fished in these waters, and after the Romans the Saxons settled here. It was about 13 centuries ago, and they fought a great battle with the Danes at one end of the Sound. The little settlement of fisherfolk grew in numbers, and we know from written records that in Saxon days they built St Andrew’s Church, which has grown until today it dominates the Guildhall Square, and is one of the architectural sights of the city that has grown up round it. The church was centuries old when the town was given a charter for a market, and it was a town with generations of history that claimed representatives in the first English Parliament. In due course they sent to represent them that man of courage Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who founded our first colony,

The Mayor of Saltash is an important personage : he takes precedence of the Mayor of Plymouth, and by virtue of his office is also coroner for the borough of Plymouth. The Saltash corporation has jurisdiction over the waters of Plymouth Sound and
its tributaries, and derives a considerable revenue from the buoys which it maintains therein.
The Roman road, proceeding west from Exeter a branch of the Icenhilde Way, crossed the Tamar at this point; and the “ Statio Tamara ” of the Itineraries was no doubt at King’s Tamerton, immediately above the river, on the Devonshire side. The right of ferry at Saltash, temp. Edward 111, was granted by the Black Prince, as Duke of Cornwall, during his delay at Plymouth in 1355 (see Route.7) to a soldier who had been wounded in the French wars. (See Sir II. Nicolas’s Hist, of Navy). (An excursion up the Tamar, as far as the Weir-head and Morwell Rocks, is one of the most interesting in the county.

See Devon, Rte. 7 ; and Cornwall, Route. 25.)

Route 23.—Royal Albert Bridge—Saltash. .
standard, a mass of 200 tons, to
which the tubes are bolted. The
piers which carry the roadway to
the hills are of more moderate pro
portions. They are each formed of
double columns of stone, braced to
gether by a girder of boiler-plate,
but the main piers on the shore are
of more massive construction. They
have to share with the central pier
the weight and thrust of the bridge.
The Railwa
339
y. from Plymouth and De
vonport to the steam ferry at Saltash
commands a fine view of the Hamoaze;
and, on its opposite shore, of the
woods of Thankes (Lord Graves') and
of Antony (seat of the Carews), the
town of Torpoint, the St. Germans river,
and the old keep of Trematon rising
from a bank of foliage. At Saltash
the estuary is considerably contracted,
and here the Cornwall Railway spans
They are 190 ft. in height from the
foundation, and of solid masonry
29 ft. by 17. Such, in brief, is an
outline of the Saltash viaduct, which
will probably remain unsurpassed for
many years to come. It is longer
by 300 ft. than the far-famed bridge
of Anglesea, but it has been erected
at a much less cost. Its strength,
too, has been severely tested. Each
span was subjected to a dead-weight
5and a half
strain, uniformly distributed, of
2300 tons. This amounted to about
tons per inch of the section of
the tube, but the weight of the
heaviest train will be less than half a ton
per inch. The pressure of the struc
ture on the base of its central pier
is calculated at 8 tons per foot, or
double the pressure of the Victoria
Tower on its foundation.
[The old road from Plymouth into
Cornwall passes through Devonport
and its fortifications to the ferry
across Hamoaze, where the carriage
and horses are placed upon the
steam-bridge, established 1831, by the
late J. M. Rendel, the engineer, then
residing in Plymouth. It was a
novel invention for crossing rivers,
and was first applied by Mr. Rendel
to the Dart, then at Torpoint and
Saltash, and afterwards at South
ampton and Portsmouth. Its value
was recognised by the Royal Society
who awarded for it the Telford
medal. The passage occupies about
8 minutes.
The floating bridge
passes among numerous ships laid up
inordinary.
it by the Royal Albert Bridge.
4| m. Saltash Stat. {Inn : Green
Dragon Hotel.) This town (Pop.
1900), anciently known as “ Asche ”
and “Aschcburgh”—probably from
some great ash-tree which once
stood there;—inhabited principally
by fishermen, climbs the steep shore
of the Tamar, and from the river
presents a very striking appearance,
the acclivity being abrupt, and the
old houses hanging in tiers one
above the other. The picturesque
effect of this grouping is consider
ably heightened by a variety of co
lours, arising from a strange jumble
of materials. One house is con
structed of stone, another of brick, a
third fronted with plaster, and a
fourth with slate. The principal
“ sight ” at Saltash is the view from
the high ground above the town,
where the roads branch towards Tre
maton and Callington. It is of great
extent and beauty, comprising Ha
moaze and its wooded shores, the
wonderful viaduct, the arsenal, steam
yard, and dockyard of Devonport,
Mount Edgcumbe, the winding river
and distant ocean. To this may
be added, a sumptuous tomb to 3
brothers Drew in the old Chapel of
St. Nicholas. This chapel contains
Dec. and Perp, portions, and has
a tower which may be very early
Norm. The roof-bosses are curious.
Among their ornaments occur the
arms
of Richard King of the Ro-
mans of King John and
earl of cornwall

Definition of medieval

The adjective medieval literally means “of the Middle Ages,” i.e., the period between antiquity (the Roman world) and the early modern era 

Common chronological range

Historians most often treat the Middle Ages as roughly the 5th century to the 15th century: from the collapse of the Western Roman Empire (commonly dated 476) up to the Renaissance and early modern transitions around 1400–1500 

Standard subperiods and their usual dates

• Early Middle Ages: about 500–1000.
• High Middle Ages: about 1000–1300.
• Late Middle Ages: about 1300–1500.
  These are conventional labels; exact boundaries vary by region and by the historian’s focus 

What authors usually mean when they write “medieval”

• Broad cultural sense: the social, political, religious, and material world shaped by feudal institutions, Christendom, and post‑Roman societies in Europe between Late Antiquity and the Renaissance 
• In specialised works an author may narrow the term (for example, “medieval urban law” might mean 1100–1400), so check the author’s period definition in introductions or captions 

Origin and first use of the word

The English term derives from Latin medium aevum “middle age.” The modern English adjective (often spelled mediaeval earlier) was coined in the 19th century from that Latin phrase; recorded modern forms date from the early 1800s (commonly cited 1825 for the form medieval/mediaeval) 

Quick guidance for reading historical scripts

When you encounter “medieval” in a text, assume 5th–15th centuries unless the author states otherwise; for precise work always look for the author’s explicit chronological scope because usages and boundary years differ by topic and region 

Bronze Age time boundaries overview

The Bronze Age is a cultural-technical phase defined by the pervasive use of bronze (an alloy of copper with tin or arsenic), alongside associated changes in technology, trade, burial practice, and social organisation. Its absolute dates vary widely by region because metallurgy and associated cultural changes spread at different times. Below are commonly used regional ranges and practical guidance for tagging or labelling gazetteer entries.

Common regional date ranges

• Near East and Anatolia
  Early Bronze Age: c. 3300–2100 BCE; Middle Bronze Age: c. 2100–1600 BCE; Late Bronze Age: c. 1600–1200 BCE.
• Aegean (Greece and Cyclades)
  Early Bronze Age: c. 3000–2000 BCE; Middle Bronze Age: c. 2000–1600 BCE; Late Bronze Age: c. 1600–1100 BCE.
• Central and Western Europe
  Broad Bronze Age: c. 2300–800 BCE; subdivided (Early/Middle/Late) roughly as Early c. 2300–1500 BCE, Middle c. 1500–1200 BCE, Late c. 1200–800 BCE.
• British Isles (including Devon and Cornwall)
  Broad Bronze Age: c. 2500–800 BCE; Early Bronze Age often starts c. 2500–2000 BCE (after Late Neolithic/Beaker horizons), Late Bronze Age ends c. 800 BCE.
• South Asia (Indian subcontinent)
  Indus-related Bronze Age/Harappan: c. 3300–1300 BCE (mature Harappan c. 2600–1900 BCE); local Bronze-using traditions continue and overlap with early Iron use.
• East Asia
  Bronze Age in China: roughly c. 2000–771 BCE (Xia-Shang-Zhou sequences; Shang c. 1600–1046 BCE is strongly bronze-rich).
• The Americas and parts of Sub-Saharan Africa
  No true widespread Bronze Age phase comparable to Old World sequences; metallurgy often appears much later and in different forms.

Practical guidance for mapping and gazetteer work

• Use region-specific ranges rather than a single global boundary.
• For ambiguous or single-site reports, prefer relative labels: Early Bronze Age, Middle Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age, or Bronze Age (broad)with a numeric range (e.g., Bronze Age c. 2500–800 BCE).
• Where chronology is uncertain, record both: cultural label(Bronze Age) and confidence/precision(e.g., high if radiocarbon dated; low if typological only).
• Include key local markers in metadata: metallurgy present; Beaker/urnfield/bronze-ritual features; radiocarbon dates range; typology links.
• Allow fields for overlapping phases (e.g., “Late Neolithic / Early Bronze Age transitional”) and for caveats like reuse or later disturbance.

Why ranges differ and how to communicate that

• Start and end dates depend on: first local alloy production; availability of tin or copper sources and trade; cultural adoption of bronze technologies; and the arrival of ironworking.
• Use wording that communicates variability: “Bronze Age (regional: c. 2500–800 BCE)”or “Bronze Age — British Isles convention: c. 2500–800 BCE”.
• When precision matters, attach dating evidence: radiocarbon ranges, stratigraphic context, or diagnostic artefact types.

Short recommended labels for database fields

• Period label: Bronze Age
• Region qualifier: e.g., British Isles
• Numeric range: e.g., c. 2500–800 BCE
• Subdivision: Early / Middle / Late (if known)
• Dating confidence: High / Medium / Low
• Dating evidence: Radiocarbon; typology; stratigraphy; historical reference

The suffix ‘ton’ constitutes a sort of test word,” says Mr. Isaac Taylor, “ by which we are able to discriminate the Anglo-Saxon settlements.”1 “A tun or ‘ton ’ was a place
surrounded by a hedge, or rudely fortified by a palisade”

The passage you quoted is part of the author’s argument that Plympton’s name is unmistakably Anglo‑Saxon, and that the key to recognising this lies in the suffix ‑ton. The PDF you have open confirms this discussion in its treatment of early Plympton history .

🏰 What ‑tonActually Signifies

The core point is that ‑ton(Old English tūn) originally meant:

• An enclosed place— literally a fenced or hedged area

• A defended homestead or settlement— often with a palisade

• A farmstead that could grow into a village or manor

So when you see a place‑name ending in ‑ton, you are almost always looking at:

• A Saxon foundation, or

• A Saxon renamingof an older site they took over.

This is why Isaac Taylor calls it a “test word”: it reliably marks Anglo‑Saxon occupation or administrative control.