Exploring Devon's history along the River Tamar unveils a captivating narrative of human existence, spanning back to prehistoric times. Evidence of Saxon settlement can be seen in the form of burial sites and remnants of settlements, offering glimpses into the lives of these early settlers. The river itself played a crucial role in facilitating trade and communication, serving as a pathway for boats and ships that transported goods and connected communities along its banks. Devon's rich cultural heritage, intertwined with the Tamar and its surrounding landscapes, continue to captivate historians and reveal the remarkable stories of those who came before us.
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 ridesafe in either of the two rivers , to take the opportunity of the first wind.
Stuart Amos Arnold published an eighteenth-century navigation 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 of 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 landGo between the rock and east part of the islan, 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 Passagepoint 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 , there is beacon on it bring Stone-house on the Old Gunwharf crane ; run that mark on till you bring a large fall-gate gate ,that is on the hill above the Passagehouse , and the highest 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 lead and glisters in the sun; there are no great houses in the town; the streets OH! are good and clean, there is a great many though some are narrow ; they are mostly inhabited by seamen and those whichhave altaiies 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
History of Devonshire.
their residence at Warleigh. The heiress of the Folio!! » brought it to the Gorges, and from them it passed, by
female heirs, to Bonvile, Coplestone, and Bampfylde . For some century and a half it has been the seat of the Radcliffes. The Coplestone oak, which stood on the grim by the church, was the traditional scene of a murder by one of the Coplestones, the ‘ fatal oak ? of Mrs. Bray's ‘Warleigh.’ Gilbert Foliott, successively Abbot of Gloucester, Bishop of Hereford (1149), and Bishop of London (1161 ), was a native of Tamerton. One of the most learned men of his day, he was also a steady opponent of A Becket, and was excommunicated by that primate and the Pope accordingly, but relieved by a synod which he called. He held the See of London twenty years.Maristow in this parish, the seat of Sir Massey Lopes, was the site of the ancient chapel of St. Martin (whence the name) belonging to the canons of Plympton. After the Dissolution it came to the Champernownes, who sold it in 1550 to John Slanning of Shaugh. Thence it descended with the rest of the Slanning estates, and was bought by Sir Masseh Manasseh Lopes in 1798. It seems probable that Maristow was the chapel of St. Martin de Blakestane (the next Domesday manor to Tamerton), held by the Priory temp. Henry I., and given by Paganel. It is also said to have been the gift of William de Pin and his daughter Sibella.
PLYMOUTH, DEVONPORT, AND STONEHOUSE.
I'm recorded history of Plymouth cannot be traced much In (her 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 til 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 as t