The only way that 2020 will be remembered fondly with regards to travelling is if 2021 is worse. I’m tempting fate just writing that sentence.
It took until September of this year for us to take a week off work and leave the house, a previously nearly-unimaginable period of time without somewhere foreign to titillate the senses. That week was a break to the West Country, an area with which we’re reasonably familiar – our very first trip away together as a couple was to Cornwall – but this would be to places we’d not visited before. The first three days saw us staying in Plymouth, considered a sister-city to our home of Portsmouth because of its naval dockyard connections, and a city we’d therefore expected to be quite similar. Yeah, not so much, as it turns out.
This post will cover our first day in Plymouth.
Roadworks for long stretches didn’t have too much of an impact on our travelling time along the coast, thankfully, and we only made a single wrong turning (albeit a fortuitous one that got us to where we needed to be faster) in Devon’s largest city before arriving at the New Continental Hotel. We picked it because the location was pretty good and on-site parking for the three days we’d be there was very cheap. A very friendly check-in and explanation of some of the COVID-19 rules in place – masks on outside the room, one person at a time in the elevator, don’t lick the banisters; sensible stuff – was followed by us quickly finding our room on the second floor. The room was a very good size; no view to speak of but we weren’t there for the view. Our only criticism of the room was the heat which was toasty and uncomfortably so after walking up the stairs with masks on as we did each time we returned to the hotel. There was no air conditioning and the window was left open all the time to counter that. Luckily, the area was a quiet one, helped by Plymouth’s plentiful cameras keeping traffic speed and noise low.
We decided to have a quick walk to get a feel for the immediate surroundings and get our bearings sorted ahead of making for the harbour area on the east side of the city. This was our introduction to just how different from Portsmouth that Plymouth was. Portsmouth may be surrounded by hills but the city is flat. Plymouth, on the other hand, seems mostly to have been placed on the large hill that forms most of it, then slid off or been pushed off around and behind it by the impressively imposing Royal Citadel fortfications. We’d expected something familiar – a seaside town with naval connections – but we’d found ourselves on a fortified rock with quays and marinas, and the bulk of the commercial and residential properties blocked from any view of the sea by that hilly mass on its southern edge. I know that you can’t see the sea from a hundred metres back from it in Portsmouth either but just being at or near sea-level gives you a closer connection in my opinion. That feeling of being slightly disconnected from the water thanks to the Royal Citadel and Hoe Park dominating the high land of Plymouth remained with us throughout our stay.
As mentioned, the Royal Citadel did look very impressive and we had a quick check online to see about taking a look around, but restrictions on what was accessible and the need to book well ahead of the visit due to the virus put us off. Incidentally, that need to pre-book – and we understand it for popular places at popular times – would prove to be a major hindrance during our late-September, West Country break; museums, pubs, and restaurants made casual visiting a chore. Do you know when you’ll be somewhere you’ve never been before? Do you know how long you’ll be? Well, we didn’t. Down to the harbour we went.
We arrived at the spot near the Mayflower Steps Memorial, waterside, at the southern end of Sutton Harbour, and noticed a swing bridge that allows pedestrians to cross more quickly to the aquarium when yachts and other boats weren’t entering or exiting the area. You’ll be able to read about our visit to the aquarium when I cover our last day in Plymouth. It was to the Plymouth Boat Trips ticket booth that we headed, however, in order to book ourselves on the final harbour boat cruise of the evening due to take place within the hour. Under a tenner each and lasting ninety minutes with a free drink included, this would be the “Summer Sundowner“, not quite coinciding with sunset for our visit, and somewhat scuppered by cloud cover anyway. It was, however, something we didn’t have to pre-book and a chance for us to get out onto the water for the first time in 2020. Did you know we like to cruise? We don’t like to mention it.
Our catamaran arrived and we boarded. There was seating downstairs, inside, plus seating on the top, exposed to the wind. Almost everyone headed up top because that’s what sensible people do and as we were the second people to board we snagged a prime spot right at the back with views not obscured by other passengers. Restrictions to prevent COVID-19 transmission meant that masks had to be worn at all times, even outside (which seemed a bit over-the-top, but whatever), but other than meaning I had to remember not to breathe out just before taking a photo if I didn’t want to fog up the viewfinder this didn’t prove to be much of a pain.
Plymouth is effectively a bit of land between two rivers, these being the Tamar to the west and the Plym to the east. Out boat trip would take us out past the mouth of the Plym with the area opposite Plymouth across the Plym known as Mount Batten. Mount Batten has a breakwater jutting out from it and on that breakwater during our visit there was an art installation. This was Speedwell, built as part of the four-hundredth celebration of the Mayflower‘s sailing to America. Comprising over three and half thousand LEDs, the installation flashes one of nine combinations of words designed to reflect the New World that the pilgrims hoped to find, the fact that it wasn’t really a New World at all as it was inhabited, and that for Speedwell the voyage didn’t even take place, amongst other things. Surprisingly interesting and even mesmerising at times, and we’d get a better view on the way back from the harbour cruise as the light was fading and the artwork became more prominent.
Our boat had a bar on the lower deck; small, but with a reasonable selection of wines, spirits, and beers. As mentioned, the harbour cruise tickets we had entitled us to a free drink and we decided to go with some Prosecco. If we were on a proper cruise ship it’d be champagne but you work with what you have. If plastic tumblers of fizz and a wake view are all 2020’s allowing us to have then so be it.
Our boat proceeded south as far as the Plymouth Breakwater which it then proceeded to slowly pass alongside. This brought us up close with the Plymouth Breakwater Fort, one of the Palmerston Forts built in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The first ones were built near Portsmouth (because we’re more important) so we were very familiar with them and their intended purpose, as well as the ultimate waste of time and money it took to construct them.
Close to the fort we passed RFA Tiderace at anchor. Tiderace is a fast fleet tanker and a fairly modern one at that.
The breakwater had interesting elements at each end of it. We’d already passed the eastern end where a beacon was mounted, comprising a spherical cage atop a structure. This had originally been designed as a refuge for shipwrecked sailors and tells you a lot about the mindset of people in the nineteenth century. The western end was marked by a lighthouse, operational from 1844.
Our gentle, clockwise cruise around Plymouth Harbour next took us past the landmass to the southwest which included Mount Edgcumbe. This was Cornwall we were passing as Plymouth is situated right on the Devon/Cornwall border. Mount Edgcumbe is a landscaped park and woodland with Grade I listed gardens. We wouldn’t visit it during our short stay in the area but the gentle hills and follies we saw looked very attractive even under the cool, grey skies.
Opposite Mount Edgcumbe, as the boat turned around in the mouth of the Tamar, we saw the impressive architecture of the Royal William Yard buildings. Even had we not known about Plymouth’s naval heritage we would have immediately recognised the style of building associated with the Admiralty, again thanks to living in Portsmouth. Built between 1826 and 1835 and designed by architect John Rennie the Younger, Royal William Yard was constructed from local limestone and granite and served as the major victualling depot of the Royal Navy. Much like the Palmerston Forts, however, Royal William Yard never really fulfilled its intended purpose as not long after construction was completed the requirements of the navy changed. These days the area is another former-military establishment turned into restaurants and bars with sea views and historical landmarks, and if we’d had one more day in Plymouth then we would have explored it but our time was too limited on this occasion
The final site of interest in Plymouth Harbour that we’d not seen was St Nicholas Island, or as it’s become more commonly known since the late sixteenth cenury, Drake’s Island, in honour of Sir Francis Drake who had strong connections with the Devonshire city. The rock of the island is a mixture of ejected lava and limestone and the island served as the focal point for the defence of Plymouth for many centuries. Barracks and batteries have occupied the location and numerous plans have been put forward to build hotels on the space since its sale by the Crown but its current disposition is due to be that of a museum and heritage centre once the world sees the back of this pesky virus and things get back to near-normality.
All that remained of our hour and a half out in Plymouth Sound on a boat was to head back towards Sutton Harbour. This took us past Plymouth Hoe with its own lighthouse (you can never have too many) and war monuments around which we’d have a walk a couple of days later.
We had another chance to gaze at the Speedwell art installation on Mount Batten breakwater as our harbour boat cruise came to an end.
To finish off our first few hours in Plymouth we sought out somewhere to eat and drink. Eating proved to be difficult thanks to it being a Saturday night during a pandemic when everywhere wants you to book a table in advance. As I’ve already mentioned, this is not a policy that lends itself to casual travelling, and, although there’s an argument that this is a good thing when the world is under attack at the microscopic level, it’s a smidge inconvenient for visitors if you’re trying to keep the economy running. After a couple of “Did you book a table? Ah…” responses we eventually found a friendly welcome, pizza, beer, and cider at The Plymouth Stable. And some gorgeous views across the waterfront to the main harbour area of the city as the light faded from the sky was a bonus.
The pub we concluded our evening in was The Cider House which, as its name implies, specialised in ciders. There were over a dozen available which pleased my wife a lot but we limited ourselves to just a couple because we’d be heading out fairly early the following day to see the Eden Project, and you’ll be able to read about that in the next post from this West Country series.
