Plymouth Through Time

My latest book, from Amberley Publishing, is out this week. Called 'Plymouth Through Time', it features then and now photos of Plymouth from the turn of the 1900s. All the new photos in the book are in colour and some of the places covered include Milehouse, Turnchapel, the Hoe, St Budeaux, Saltash Passage, the City Centre, the Barbican and much more. It's available in all the usual places such as Waterstones, WH Smiths and online but will also be available in Morrisons and other supermarkets. It's one of a series and later titles will include, 'The Rame Peninsula Through Time', Saltash Through Time' and 'A Year on the Tamar'.

In Search of Romans

I was very interested to read about the hoard of Roman coins found in Somerset which was in the news earlier this week. A similar hoard was found in Plymouth in 1894. A crock of Roman coins was discovered at Compton Giffard containing a thousand coins all dating from before AD 280. The British Museum suggested that it could have been part of a Roman pay chest for a legion stationed in the area. Romans are also believed to have once inhabited Stonehouse. The area carried the name Stonehouse even in Saxon times and it is believed that it was named after a ruin in the area that only the Romans could have built. Unfortunately, this ruin is now long gone. In 1882, a Roman crematorium was discovered at Newport Street just below Stonehouse Bridge. It contained small tombs, about four feet by two feet, containing human bones and ashes. Unfortunately, it has all long since been destroyed. Evidence also suggests the existence of Romans inhabiting the area in the street name at St Budeaux, 'Roman Way'. Roman Way was originally called 'Old Wall's Lane' which suggests an ancient occupation. A Roman signal station was believed to have once stood on the hill there and soapwort, which was used by the Romans for medicine, has been found growing nearby. Soapwort is usually only found in this country on the site of an old settlement. Other evidence also points to the existence of Romans in the area. A galley was said to have been found at Newnham and Roman coins and pottery have been found at Mount Batten. In 1888, a large hoard of Roman coins were found at Stamford in Plymstock. Also a bronze figure of Mercury was found at Hooe. There have been no reports of further hoards being found in Plymouth but I've no doubt that they probably exist. The Ridgeway at Plympton has long been believed to be part of a Roman road. It is recorded in 1281 as Ryggeseweystrete and the strete part of its name suggests a Roman link. Records also exist of the discovery of early camps near Crownhill although these may have been British. I have heard of Roman coins being discovered in the Plym and at Whitleigh, Torr and Millbay but these are few and far between. I'd be very interested to hear of any other finds in and around the city.

Adverts from the War Years

I recently wrote about Goulds in Ebrington Street and there's a photo of it in my new book, from Amberley Publishing, 'Plymouth Through Time'.

I discovered a copy of the Western Evening Herald from 21st March 1941 and in it is an interesting advert for Goulds which can be seen above. On sale are rubber boots for ARP Wardens priced at 12/11, Gas mask holders for 5½d, Regulation sandbags for the same price, Army Blankets for 10/6 and also Rifle Slings, Kitbags and Ammunition Pouches for 5½d. All things that would have come in very handy at the time when Plymouth was just about to go through its worst period. Goulds was at Treville Street

which once joined Old Town Street but was later devastated by the Blitz.

Another interesting advert in the paper was for Costers. Rather than thinking about the War, they were concentrating on the new Spring fashions which included a snazzy checked sports jacket for men and an even more snazzy checked suit and cap for boys. I've never seen any children in photos from the 1940s dressed like this. The cost for the whole outfit was 17/11, a lot of money then especially if you bought it and then your son felt too ridiculous to wear it! In comparison, the man on the right looks more like men dressed in the 1940s. Perhaps the checked suits were aimed at the posher market. Costers were located at Frankfort Street, another victim of the Blitz.

Ploughed Fields

I've written before about town dung and how it was brought up the River Tamar and spread on the nearby fields. Recently, while walking at Churchtown Farm at Saltash, I noticed that one of the fields had been ploughed so I decided to have a quick walk over it to see what I could find. The photo shows some of the items that I came across. The first thing I found was an Edward VII farthing which dates from the early 1900's. I also found a piece of clay pipe. This probably dates from the same period although I've found bits of clay pipe from the 1600s at Empacombe on the Mount Edgcumbe Estate.

I also found an old glass bottle top and a glass marble. The glass marble comes from an old Codd Bottle and children in Victorian times would break the neck of the bottles to get at the marble. Playing marbles was once a very popular pastime, even when I was a boy. The muddy banks beside the river at Churchtown Farm are littered with similar broken bottles. I'm not sure what the other item in the photo is although it's made of copper. All these items were found on the surface and it makes you wonder, if you had a metal detector, what else there is to find. I also found loads of old pottery and an old Bovril bottle which I left on the post for someone else to have. When I went back the next day, it had gone.

The shores of Antony Passage are littered with old bottles and even the remains of Victorian shoes. It was once a popular pastime amongst bottlers to search for finds on the banks there but the locals nowadays aren't as welcoming as they once were!

This is probably just junk to most people but to me it's interesting to find a piece of the past.

Alexander Graham Bell

Amazingly, the first telephone installation in the UK was in Plymouth at Tor Grove in Weston Peverel, now known as Pennycross. Alexander Graham Bell was visiting the town in 1877 to lecture about the invention of the telephone when he stayed at the residence of Robert Bayly. Bayly was elected to the first Devon City Council and was also a Justice of the Peace. His father founded the Marine Biological Association. While staying with Bayly, Bell installed the telephone line which connected the house and the gardener's cottage. It remained in use for many years before the apparatus was presented to the Plymouth Museum. Alexander Graham Bell was born in 1847. Both his mother and wife were deaf which interested him in experimenting with hearing devices which eventually led on to his invention of the telephone. The patent was applied for in 1876. Although he is most famous for this invention, he felt that it intruded on his more important scientific research and refused to have a telephone in his study. In 1888, he became one of the founding members of the National Geographic society. Bell died in 1922. During his funeral, it was reported that, 'every phone on the continent of North America was silenced in honor of the man who had given to mankind the means for direct communication at a distance.'

Stanley Gibbons

Perhaps stamp collecting isn't the hobby that it once was. When I was a boy in the 1960s, every kid that I knew collected stamps. Times change and perhaps the name of Stanley Gibbons isn't as well known to younger people as it would have once been. Edward Stanley Gibbons was born in Plymouth on the 21st June, 1840, coincidently in the same year that Britain issued the Penny Black. His father, William, owned a chemist shop in Treville Street. Stanley had an interest in stamps from when he was a boy and joined his father's business after the death of his eldest brother.His father encouraged his stamp collecting hobby and a stamp desk was set up within the chemist's shop. Between 1861 and 1871, Stanley Gibbons built up his own stamp business which proved to be very popular. On the death of his father in 1867, he took over the chemist shop but found himself heavily involved in the business of buying and selling stamps which took most of his time and eventually, the chemist shop was sold. After he married, in 1872, he relocated his business to London where he employed women to separate sheets of stamps in the evening. He was reported to the local authorities by neighbours who were suspicious of all of the young women who attended his address and surprisingly, this was investigated although they found nothing untoward. By the time Gibbon's first wife died in 1887, the business was a great success. He later married his housemaid, Margaret Casey in 1890 before selling his stamp business to Charles Phillips for £25,000. Soon after, he retired. Gibbons married for a third time after the death of his second wife in 1901. He travelled extensively all over the world for pleasure and to purchase stamps. Gibbons third wife died in 1905 and he married for a fourth time but this wife died in 1908 and he married, amazingly, for a fifth time in 1909. They are believed to have separated before his death because he makes no mention of her in his will and leaves his entire estate 'to a dear friend, Mabel Hedgecoe'. Gibbons died on the 17th February 1913. His string of wives, most of whom died relatively young, has given rumour to some wrong doing on his part but this has never been proved. Stanley Gibbons is nowadays seen as a successful business and perhaps the person behind it is somewhat forgotten. However, almost one hundred years after his death, his name is, and will probably always be, forever linked with the immense, worldwide hobby of stamp collecting.

Prehistoric caverns at Stonehouse

I recently came across a cutting from the Evening Herald from the 9th November, 1960. It carries a report about prehistoric caverns at Stonehouse and reads:

'Stonehouse's prehistoric limestone caverns, discovered in the 18th century and since lost to modern knowledge have, it is believed, been rediscovered by builders excavating foundations for a new warehouse in George Street. Directing a pneumatic drill into limestone boulders, a workman found the rock giving way to expose a 10ft shaft with two long fissures squeezing from it. Remains of prehistoric rhinoceroses, horses, oxen, deer and other animals were once found in the caverns but were destroyed when the Athenaeum was blitzed in the last war.'

I haven't been able to find any follow up to this article but isn't it amazing that this all probably exists beneath the streets of Stonehouse and it's such a shame that the remains found in the 1700s were destroyed in the war. The story of Cattedown Man is well known and his remains were discovered in limestone caves in the Cattedown area of the city in 1887. With him were the bones of 15 early humans together with the remains of woolly rhinoceros, woolly mammoth, deer and lion dating from the ice age. The remains are approximately 140,000 years old and are the oldest remains discovered in the British Isles.

Prehistoric remains have been found in Ernesettle Woods, at Mutley and Keyham as well as Stonehouse.

It's amazing what is beneath our feet but also incredible that very little of this history ever seems to be mentioned. I certainly haven't read anything at all about the Stonehouse Caverns in the last 40 years.

The location of the Cattedown caverns is meant to be a secret, for fear of fossil hunters etc, but it's well known that they are located beneath the fuel depot there. It would be incredible to be able to visit them and it seems a shame that the area is off limits to local residents.