The History of Plymouth in Devon, England, extends back to the Bronze Age, when the first settlement began at Mount Batten a peninsula in Plymouth Sound facing onto the English Channel. It continued as both a fishing and continental tin trading port through the late Iron Age into the Early Medieval period, until the more prosperous Saxon settlement of Sutton, later renamed Plymouth, surpassed it. With its natural harbour and open access to the Atlantic, the town found wealth and a national strategic importance during the establishment of British naval dominance in the colonisation of the New World. In 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers departed from Plymouth to establish the second English colony in America. During the English Civil War the town was besieged between 1642 and 1646 by the Royalists, but after the Restoration a Dockyard was established in the nearby town of Devonport (later amalgamated with Plymouth). Throughout the Industrial Revolution Plymouth grew as a major mercantile shipping industry, including imports and passengers from the US, whilst Devonport grew as a naval base and ship construction town, building battleships for the Royal Navy – which later led to its partial destruction during World War II in a series of air-raids known as the Plymouth Blitz. After the war was over, the city centre was completely rebuilt to a new plan.
Toponymy For much of its earlier history, the settlement here was known as Sutton (Sutona in 1086, Suttona in 1201), simply meaning South town. It was based near Sutton Harbour, the oldest quarter of the modern city. The modern name has two parts: Plym and mouth. The element Plym is taken from the River Plym along which Sutton traded with its parent settlement of Plympton, but Plympton's name (first recorded as Plymentun in c. 900) is considered to derive from the Old English word for 'plum tree', though the local civic association suggests an alternative derivation from the Celtic Pen-lyn-don ("fort at the head of a creek").
By the early 13th century, the river was being called the Plym (Plyme, in 1238), as a back-formation from Plympton and Plymstock (first recorded as Plemestocha in 1086). The earliest records of the name Plymouth date from around this time (as Plymmue in 1230, Plimmuth in 1234).
Plymouth notably lent its name to the settlement of Plymouth, Massachusetts apocryphally following the departure of the Pilgrim Fathers aboard the Mayflower in 1620 but primarily for the many other settlements in North America resulting from the activity of The Plymouth Company which had executive authority for colonising the east coast of America between latitudes 38° and 45° N from 1606 to 1624.
Early history The earliest human remains in the Plymouth area are from a number of caves around Plymouth Sound. The 'bone caves', located at Cattedown, Oreston, Turnchapel and Stonehouse, contain extensive Upper Palaeolithic deposits, including those of Homo sapiens, some of the earliest such evidence in England. A reindeer bone from one of the Cattedown caves is dated 15,125 ± 390 years B.P. There is no public access to the caves, and they are not easily locatable or visitable. However, their archaeological importance is very great, owing to both the geographical location of the Cattedown discovery, in a European context, and to the quantitative and qualitative nature and physical disposition of the human remains; this is one of the most important discoveries for the early history of anatomically modern humans in Europe. There is currently no evidence of Homo neanderthalensis having been found in caves at Cattedown, Oreston, Stonehouse or Mount Batten (Turnchapel).
It was once thought, based on a reference to TAMARIS OSTIA ('Port of Tamar') in Ptolemy's Geographia, that tin brought from Dartmoor via the River Plym was traded with the Phoenicians here, but this theory was discounted by Malcolm Todd in 1987. However, evidence of copper ingots and copper scrap in contexts dating from the late Bronze Age to the Middle Iron Age have been found at Mount Batten, a promontory settlement jutting into Plymouth Sound, which was one of the main ports of trade in Prehistoric Britain.Barry Cunliffe, Mount Batten Plymouth: A Prehistoric and Roman Port (1988)
Tin trading at Mount Batten in the region inhabited by the Dumnonii continued up to the period of Roman Britain (approximately 50 AD), but it had declined since the Iron Age. As a peripheral trading outpost of the Roman Empire this port continued to trade tin along with cattle and hides but was eclipsed by the rise of the fishing village of Sutton opposite. Later evidence suggests that the Brythonic kingdom of Dumnonia retained a degree of autonomy from Rome, and the later Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex due to the significance of its tin mining activities. Archaeological evidence from the surrounding region of west Devon and east CornwallMedieval Devon and Cornwall; Shaping an Ancient Countryside, Edited by Sam Turner, 2006 suggests that the area was culturally distinct from the more easterly English heartlands well into the Middle Ages, the agricultural and architectural patternssee for example Dartmoor longhouse having much more in common with Atlantic South Wales, Ireland and Brittany.
At the time of the Domesday Book (1086) the manor of Sutton was held by the King, but Henry I granted it to the Valletort family of nearby Trematon Castle. The Valletorts in turn granted parts to the Augustinian priory at Plympton, a larger and older settlement than Plymouth, at the head of the tidal estuary of the River Plym. That part of the town owned by Plympton Priory was granted a market charter in 1254, and the whole town and its surrounding area achieved municipal independence in 1439, becoming the first town to be incorporated by act of parliament.
As the higher parts of the Plym estuary silted up, ships used the Cattewater moorings and the then tidal harbour at the Plym's mouth instead of Plympton. And so the name of the town Sutton slowly became Plymouth. The name Sutton still exists in the name of its old harbour and a parliamentary division.
The town was often the target of enemies across the English Channel, especially during the Hundred Years' War. In 1340 French attackers, who had been successfully burning towns along the coast by surprise, burned a manor house and took some prisoners, but failed to get into the town; by the time they reached Plymouth, they had lost the advantage of surprise. In 1403, the town was briefly occupied and burnt by Breton raiders.
In the late fifteenth century Plymouth Castle, a "castle quadrate", was constructed close to the area now known as The Barbican; it included four round towers, one at each corner, as featured on the city coat of arms. The castle served to protect Sutton Pool, which is where the fleet was based in Plymouth prior to the establishment of Plymouth Dock. In 1512 an Act of Parliament was passed for further fortifying Plymouth, and a series of fortifications were then built including defensive walls at the entrance to Sutton Pool (across which a chain would be extended in time of danger). Defences on St Nicholas Island also date from this time, and a string of six artillery blockhouses were built (including one on Fishers Nose at the south-eastern corner of the Hoe).See 1591 Spry Map of Plimmouth and surrounding areas, British Library This location was further strengthened by the building of a fort (later known as Drake's Fort) in 1596, which itself went on to provide the site for the Citadel, established in the 1660s.
Renaissance age
During the 16th century, Plymouth was the home port for a number of successful maritime traders, among them William Hawkins, who made the first English expeditions to West Africa in the 1530s; and his son Sir John Hawkins, who led England's first foray into the slave trade.
The diary of his own son Admiral Sir Richard Hawkins inspired the Victorian novel Westward Ho! which romantically mythologises the historical exploits of the 'Men of Devon' of this era.
However Sir Francis Drake, navigator, privateer and vice admiral of the British Royal Navy remains the city's most famous resident; though born in Tavistock, he was mayor of Plymouth from 1581 and is credited with bringing fresh water from Dartmoor to the flourishing town by means of an aqueduct now known as Drake's Leat and developing the Tudor fortifications around Sutton Harbour. The remains of once wealthy Elizabethan Merchant's houses can be still be seen in the city's Barbican quarter – which has also seen the first arrival and departure on British soil of many notable persons such as Catherine of Aragon and Pocahontas in 1501 and 1616 respectively.
Outside the historic town walls, Plymouth Hoe, meaning high place, remains a wide grass meadow atop cliffs overlooking the natural harbour of Plymouth Sound. According to an enduring national myth, this is the place where Sir Francis Drake insisted on completing his game of bowls to allow wind and tide to change in his favour enabling his defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.
In 1589, the English Armada's assembly had been completed, and the fleet of 146 ships lay at mooring in Plymouth. However, due to poor planning, and a lack of both cavalry and siege artillery aboard the fleet, the expedition was ultimately defeated.
Local histographer Sir Richard Carew of Antony in his Survey of Cornwall noted the presence in the early 17th century of large outline images of the giants Gog and Magog (or Goemagot and Corineus the mythical founder of Cornwall) which had been for a long time cut into the grass of the Hoe, exposing the white limestone beneath. There is no trace of these chalk figures today.
In 1606 the Plymouth Company (the Plymouth Adventurers) was issued with a royal charter by James I of England with the purpose of establishing settlements on the coast of North America. A few years later, Plymouth was also the departure point of the Mayflower in 1620, aboard which the Pilgrim Fathers set sail for the New World, establishing the second permanent English colony in the United States of America. They eventually landed at a site which Captain John Smith had already named New Plymouth in a map published in his 1616 work A Description of New England pp. 69–71 and the Pilgrims accepted this name. Twin flags of the US and UK now fly at the Mayflower Steps to commemorate the significance of this event to both nations.
Civil War, Restoration and William III
During the English Civil War Plymouth, in common with the other major port towns, sided with the Parliamentarians and so was isolated from the surrounding regions of Devon and Cornwall which were held by Royalist sympathisers. The town was besieged almost continuously from December 1642 to January 1646; the main factor in its successful resistance was the navy's adherence to Parliament which allowed the regular arrival of supply ships and, when under serious Royalist attacks, enabled parties of seamen to be rushed ashore to reinforce the defences.
Extensive works were constructed to defend the town, including a line of stockaded earthworks on high ground north of the town, from Lipson in the east to Eldad in the west, as well as several isolated works, for instance at Prince Rock, Cattedown and Stonehouse. Various skirmishes and confrontations occurred, including the rout of Royalist cavalry along Lipson Ridge on 3 December 1643, which is commemorated by a monument in Freedom Fields Park, and the battle of St Budeaux. Construction of the Royal Citadel began in 1665, after the Restoration; it was armed with cannon facing both out to sea and into the town, rumoured to be a reminder to residents not to oppose the Crown.