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| The
attractive curve at the west end of Fore Street
perhaps reflects the line of the castle moat. The
variety of architectural styles here is enlivened
by the colour and texture of local stone that has
been incorporated into many buildings and walls.
Plympton is favoured by the geological history of
South-west Devon. During hundreds of millions of
years volcanic eruptions have deposited lavas, now
exposed in the cuttings of Plympton Hill, and coral
reefs in long gone seas have been transformed into
limestones streaked with red bands of volcanic ash.
Pink and grey granites from Dartmoor now blend with
the slates, shales and grits from numerous local
quarries. Builders have used this wealth of material,
together with brick and tile, timber frame and plaster,
to create a pleasing variety of detail. |
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Old prints show that over the last
two hundred years there have been some changes
in Fore Street. Several houses once extended their
upper stories above the pavement, and slate hangings
were more widely used. The practice of facing
a wall with slates to give added protection from
the elements is widespread in South Devon. Perhaps
this says something about our weather! There are
good examples of slate hangings in Totnes and
Ashburton and it is a pity that so many have gone
from St. Maurice. However, Victorian and later
rebuilding has generally blended happily with
the old, and the western end of the Street is
still dominated by the thickly wooded slopes of
Plympton Covert. |
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There
are several houses of particular interest in Fore
Street. At the west end, The Lodge stands on the
site of an old tanning yard. It was built about
1840, and the pillared porch and parapet have since
been added. St. Maurice House is a large mid-eighteenth
century building. Cedar Lodge was probably once
an Inn certainly a house has stood on this site
since the 1400s. The old garden wall built of stone
rubble has been standing over 200 years. The houses
opposite were mostly built in the eighteenth century. |
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The
Foresters Arms is a handsome building with acanthus
carvings under the eaves. The cottages opposite
the Guildhall are modern. The rear wall of Mayoralty
House has, below decorative tiling, patterns in
pebbles and shells brought by horse and cart from
Wembury at the beginning of this century. At this
time, St. Vincent's Nursing Home, which is down
the lane beside Mayoralty House, was a Malthouse,
where lines in the loft could be hired for one penny
to dry washing. Here the horse was stabled which
pulled the fire pump, kept in an engine house by
the Guildhall. |
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| Tudor
Lodge, on the south side, has a timber frame, deep
eaves and a steeply pitched roof. It was probably
built in the seventeenth century as sash windows
were not introduced into England from Holland until
the 1680s. Several houses in Fore Street have windows
that are blocked up. This was probably done to avoid
paying the Window Tax that was imposed from 1695
until 1851. |
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| The
guttering of Brick House, opposite, is decorated
with lions' heads, and above the door is a Fire
Insurance plaque. After the Great Fire of London
in 1666, Insurance Companies maintained their own
Fire Brigades. Buildings insured by them had to
carry their firemark so that it was obvious which
Company was responsible for putting out a fire if
one should occur. The plaque shows that this house
was insured with the Sun Fire Office which was established
in 1710. On the other side of the road there is
a pair of houses built of a variety of local stone
giving a pleasing mixture of colour. The Cage and
the Pent House, with pillared arcades, were originally
built as three cottages in the seventeenth century.
The Cage, no doubt, acquired its name because it
was the village lock-up, until cells were built
in the Guildhall. The name Pent House probably refers
to the overhanging upper storey which is supported
on pillars. William IV, when Duke of Clarence, stayed
at the Pent House in 1780 after attending a ball
at the Guildhall. He is said to have sat upstairs
taking potshots with a gun through a window at the
ridge tiles on the roofs of nearby houses! The pavement
here, of patterned brick and cobble fragments, stands
high above the road. Comings and goings to the Corn
Market in a building opposite, where Carlton House
now stands, and the weekly market at the junction
of Fore Street and Church Street, must have made
the road muddy. Would this be why there are boot
scrapers by many front doors? The early eighteenth
century house on the corner would have sheltered
traders and their customers under its arcades. |
| The
Rectory, on the south side of Fore Street, includes
earlier parts containing stones from the ruins of
Plympton Priory. In 1586 it was leased to Christopher
Martin, a merchant, but much altered in 1600. Most
of the present building dates from the early eighteenth
century, the front part having been rebuilt in the
1720s. There is attractive plaster-work beneath
the first floor window sills. The adjacent houses,
with decorative Art Nouveau brickwork of the Edwardian
period, are strikingly different. Many buildings
in Fore Street have changed their functions. During
the last century, directories indicate that a poulterer,
butcher, coal merchant, draper, tailor, milliner
and wig-maker, ironmonger and several others, plied
their trades in Fore Street. In 1880, among Plympton
St. Maurice's five schools, there were schools for
young ladies at Milton House and Beechwood Villa.
Within living memory there were bakers, laundries,
dairies, sweet shops, butchers, a shoemaker and
a number of grocers. Families used to take their
Sunday joints to one of the bakers in Fore Street
to be cooked in the oven. Many old shop windows
can still be seen, such as at numbers 10, 12, 31
and 41. On the south side of Fore Street, lanes
and passageways afford glimpses of cottages and
distant fields. The strip gardens, typical of a
mediaeval borough, run down to the Longbrook, formerly
called Ballan's Brook, a corruption of Baldwin,
the first lord of the manor. |
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Brook Cottage, down the passageway
next to Tudor Lodge, is all that remains of a
group of cottages where a brewery once stood,
and from there two very large old yew trees can
be seen. They stand in the garden of Legassick
House and have a Preservation Order on them. In
recent years there has been a ban on heavy traffic
using Fore Street, but on the occasions of the
Queen's Silver and Gold Jubilees, the Street was
completely closed. Residents enjoyed a street
party with music and dancing the length of Fore
Street which had been decorated with flags and
banners.
Based on:
© MILLS, Audrey F, 1981: Plympton St.
Maurice Guide, First Edition, Plympton
St. Maurice Civic Association
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