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Welcome to our Plymouth book of wonder, where our quirky and fascinating facts give you a flavour as to what makes Plymouth the vibrant, creative and exciting ocean city that it is today. Being the largest port city on the south coast of England, Plymouth is a spectacular waterfront city with a resident population of 256,400. We are ambitious and are seeing many exciting major changes ahead. As well as being a city which offers an enviable quality of life, Plymouth is also a top location to do business. To find out more about Plymouth, Britain’s Ocean City contact the Enterprise and Inward Investment team on: T +44 1752 307360 E invest@plymouth.gov.uk www.plymouth.gov.uk/invest
We gratefully acknowledge the support from all the businesses and organisations that have helped us by providing images and information for this guide, with special thanks to the Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery. Every care has been taken to ensure the information contained in this publication is correct at time of printing; however Plymouth City Council cannot be held responsible for any errors, omissions or actions being taken on reliance on it.
There are 52 other Plymouths in the world but only one original
Sutton Harbour
Plymouth is the best place to live in the country in terms of good schools, clean air, value and quality of housing and access to sparkling sea...’The Guardian’ 2013
Photo by Bao Wang
The bright young students are making a beeline for Plymouth. Plymouth University is the 9th biggest in the UK with over 32,000 students and was ranked among the top 300 universities in the world in 2013
Photo by Plymouth University
Photo from Burts Potato Crisps
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Recent NESTA research showed that Plymouth ranked 8th highest in the country on the proportion of businesses classed as ‘high-growth’, alongside the likes of Oxford and Cambridge
Plymouth is the fastest in the west!
Plymouth is in the top 10 nationally for its superfast broadband speeds and coverage
In 1919, Plymouth’s Nancy Astor was the first woman to sit as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons
Photo from Plymouth City Council (Arts and Heritage)
Plymouth’s Royal William Yard is home to the largest collection of Grade 1 Listed Naval buildings in Europe - now a cultural hotspot for bars, restaurants and art galleries
From the Battle of Trafalgar to the Falklands conflict, The Millfields in Stonehouse was the site of a Royal Naval hospital for nearly 250 years
Photo by FotoNow Photographers
Stone me!
Plymouth has the highest concentration of cobbled streets in England
A Licence to Pirate! On March 15th 1587, Queen Elizabeth 1 wrote to Sir Francis Drake giving him permission to capture and loot as many Spanish settlements as possible, and bring the spoils home. Simply put, the Queen was giving Drake permission to be a pirate!
Plymouth’s iconic Smeaton’s Tower became the blueprint for lighthouse construction - it’s based on the sturdiness of an oak tree
Photo by Bao Wang
Plymouth based Brittany Ferries began life as a farmers’ ferry bringing cauliflowers from France to the UK
Photo from Brittany Ferries
Brittany Ferries now transports approximately 2 million people a year
St Andrew’s Minster church is the largest parish church in Devon and has been a place of worship for 1,200 years
Scott of the Antarctic was a Plymouth boy. He’s still regarded as one of the top 100 Britons
Photo from Plymouth City Council (Arts and Heritage)
Since it was opened, 325 million people and 300 million tonnes of freight have passed through the Channel Tunnel. The tunnel was bored using Kawasaki hydraulic motors that were made in Plymouth
Photo from Kawasaki Precision Machinery (UK) Ltd
The Thames flood barrier has been raised over 170 times since it was built in 1982, each time relying on hydraulic motors that were designed and manufactured in the Kawasaki factory in Plymouth
Plymouth was announced as one of the first Social Enterprise Cities in the UK in November 2013
Devonport Guildhall photo from RIO
16 million Americans
can trace their roots back to the Mayflower’s famous voyage to the New World which set sail from Plymouth in 1620
Opened in 1859, the Royal Albert Bridge is regarded as an engineering marvel - it was Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s last major work
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was the engineer in charge of building Plymouth’s Millbay Docks
In the 1920s only the winners of the Football League Division 3 (south) were promoted to Division 2
Plymouth Argyle managed the unlikely feat of finishing as runners-up for six successive seasons, 1921/2 to1926/7 inclusive
Photo from Plymouth Argyle
A fifth of the UK’s power is delivered through tubes made at Fine Tubes in Plymouth
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Photo from Fine Tubes Ltd
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle assisted at a medical practice at Durnford Street in Plymouth and Sherlock Holmes was rumoured to have been based on his colleague there, Dr Budd
In 2012 nearly 5.5 million people visited Plymouth, spending ÂŁ314 million pounds
Twofour’s National Television Award-winning Educating Yorkshire was Channel 4’s highest rating series of 2013
‘Educating Yorkshire’ Photo by Adam Lawrence
Twofour produces over 300 hours of broadcast television and digital content every year and its television programmes are aired in over 100 countries across the world. Twofour’s headquarters are located in Plymouth
Possibly the world’s earliest pasty recipe dates back to 1509, recently discovered hidden within one of the Plymouth Borough account books
Photo from South West Image Bank
The city’s former grand music hall the Palace Theatre hosted huge stars including Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Louis Armstrong, Gracie Fields and Harry Houdini
Plymouth is the largest fishing port in England with more fish landed here in 2012 than to any other port Photo from Interfish
Plymouth was the first port in England to establish an electronic auction supporting traditional fishing communities across the West Country. In 2012 first auction sales exceeded ÂŁ16m Photo from Interfish
Houdini challenged carpenters from nearby Devonport Naval Base to make a box from which he would not be able to escape. In his show at the Palace Theatre, Houdini was nailed inside the box but managed to escape within 12 minutes
Photo from National Marine Aquarium
Plymouth’s Atlantic Ocean display at the National Marine Aquarium is the deepest tank in the UK, holding an incredible 2.5 million litres of water!
Plymouth has the highest number of post-war listed buildings outside London and is a unique example of a 20th Century city Photo from Plymouth City Council (Arts and Heritage)
Plymouth city centre was heralded ‘beautiful’ and ‘heroic’ by TV’s Kevin McCloud writer and television presenter best known for his work on the Channel 4 series Grand Designs
Illuminating the future Plessey delivers interface solutions through technology and innovation, radically enhancing the human experience with micro-electronics solutions so that people achieve more than they thought possible
Photo from Plessey Semicoductors Ltd
Plymouth is home to Princess Yachts who produce some of the world’s most luxurious motor yachts with approximately 90 per cent of their boats being exported outside of the UK
Photo from Princess Yachts International
Every year thousands of people flock to Plymouth to watch the battle in the skies at the British Firework Championships
Together Plymouth Marine Laboratory and the Marine Biological Association maintain and continue to develop the Western Channel Observatory which has records going back well over a century Photo from Plymouth Marine Laboratory
In April 1849 Devonport Column was used for one of the world’s first experimental demonstrations of electric light. Organised by Plymouth scientist John Nash Hearder, the light burned for three hours and with the help of a reflector, the light was said to be shining brightly enough to read a book almost 6km/3.5 miles away at Trematon Castle Devonport Column photo from RIO
Plymouth has the highest concentration of manufacturing and engineering employment in the whole of the south of England
Photo from Plymouth Manufacturers’ Group
Plymouth boasts a Grade II listed swimming facility considered one of the finest examples of 1930s lido architecture in the country. The art deco lido overlooking Plymouth Sound featured in the Guardian’s top 10 UK outdoor swimming pools in 2013
Tinside Lido
Plymouth has the oldest Ashkenazi Synagogue in continuous use in the English speaking world - it dates from 1762
Photo by Dr Peter Lee
Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust is the largest teaching hospital trust in the South West. It employs over 6,000 staff working in 350 different roles within the Trust Derriford hospital is as big as 30 football pitches and receives 1 million people a year through its doors
Wolf Minerals is developing the third largest global tungsten resource at its Hemerdon project, just outside Plymouth
There’s something fishy at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery – the collections hold over 3,000 preserved marine creatures all from around the shores of Plymouth
Photo from Plymouth City Council (Arts and Heritage)
Plymouth, Britain’s Ocean City, is a hotspot for marine experts and the Sound is one of the oldest continually studied stretches of water on earth
Plymouth Sound and its estuaries are a European Marine Site. Beneath the waves lurk all kinds of fascinating creatures, including two species of sea horse
Photo from Plymouth City Council (Arts and Heritage)
Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery holds over 36,000 beetles collected in the early 1900s. They were all collected by the Plymothian James Higman Keys and they show the historic distribution and beautiful diversity of this amazing group of insects
Plymouth contains many fine historic buildings that survived the war, dating from the 15th century onwards such as the Prysten House, the Merchant’s House and the Elizabethan House
The Prysten House
Plymouth has the first artificial diving reef in Europe on its doorstep. The Ex-HMS Scylla was sunk off Whitsand Bay by the National Marine Aquarium and is now the UK’s most dived reef and home to thousands of marine creatures Photo from National Marine Aquarium
Over 100 listed buildings can be found on Plymouth’s Barbican
Sutton Harbour photo by Mark Tremain
At the ‘fore’ front of golf. Plymouth is surrounded by nine golf courses, two more than St Andrews, Fife, the home of golf Photo from Stadden Heights Golf Club
One of the best places in the country to be an apprentice, Plymouth’s largest provider – City College Plymouth – has a success rate 14% above the national average
Photo from Plymouth City Council (Stepping Stones to Nature Project)
Plymouth is the greenest city in the UK with 40% of the city being green space
In 2010 Natural England called our Waterfront Walkway ‘one of the finest urban coastal footpaths in the country’
Analyse this
Plymouth University is a top 50 research institute in the UK, with 80% of its work classed as either world leading or internationally significant
Photo from Plymouth University
Making waves
Plymouth University’s Marine Building is home to the most advanced wave tank in the country Photo from Plymouth University
Buckland Abbey near Plymouth recently discovered it owned a self portrait by Rembrandt. They had previously believed it was a work by one of the Dutch master’s students
Photo by National Trust Images/ Steve Haywood
Plymouth takes the biscuit! Jacka’s Bakery in Southside Street, baked biscuits for the Pilgrim Fathers and was baking when the Spanish Armada threatened to invade
Some of the Pilgrim fathers are said to have spent their last night in England at Plymouth’s Black Friars building on the Barbican where Plymouth Gin is located today
Theatre Royal Plymouth is the best attended and largest regional producing theatre in the UK and launches many major productions bound for the West End
Photo Alastair Muir
Plymouth is one of the largest harbours in Europe
Sir Francis Chichester was the first person to single-handedly sail around the globe, starting in 1966 and finishing here in Plymouth 226 days later, in 1967
Photo from South West Image Bank
The appropriately if awkwardly named Oceanus Hopkins was the only child born on the Mayflower during its voyage from England to the New World
Photo from Plymouth City Council (Arts and Heritage)
Since 1850 Plymouth has been a destination for cruise liners, including trans-Atlantic ships. Famous people to have disembarked at Millbay include Walt Disney, Judy Garland, Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy
The Port of Plymouth Regatta is one of the oldest regattas in the world, and has been held regularly since 1823
Photo by Tom Gruitt
Plymouth boasts the second highest number of five Gold Anchor Award marinas anywhere in the UK Sutton Harbour Marina, Mayflower Marina, Queen Anne’s Battery and Plymouth Yacht Haven
Sutton Harbour photo by Trevor Burrows
Plymouth Gin is distilled in Plymouth’s Black Friars Distillery, which is the oldest working gin distillery in England
Plymouth is home to the largest Naval Base in Western Europe, HMNB Devonport
Photo by Trevor Burrows
Plymouth and its suburbs are the birthplace of a number of famous artists including Sir Joshua Reynolds - a founder of the Royal Academy, Benjamin Haydon, Samuel Prout and Alfred Wallis
Photo from: Plymouth City Council (Arts and Heritage)
Robert Lenkiewicz and Beryl Cook both lived and painted in Plymouth
Robert Lenkiewicz (1941-2002) ‘The Influence of Jewish Thought on Elizabethan Culture 1580-1620’ Emulsion on plaster. 1972 Photo from: Plymouth City Council (Arts and Heritage)
Photo: courtesy of R Westlake.
Dartmoor is right on Plymouth’s doorstep Miles of stunning wilderness that captivated Hollywood director Steven Spielberg. He wrote: ‘I have never before, in my long and eclectic career been gifted with such an abundance of natural beauty as I experienced filming War Horse on Dartmoor.’
Dartmoor istock image
Plymouth ranks third for its quality of life against 20 of Britain’s largest cities according to the Sustainable Cities index 2010
Plymouth was the first overnight stop for the Olympic Flame on its journey around the British Isles in May 2012 Photo from: Plymouth City Council (Arts and Heritage)
If Plymouth College were a country, it would have finished 49th in the medals table in the 2012 Olympics.
Splash! Plymouth born diver Tom Daley is one of Britain’s youngestever Olympians. He picked up bronze at the London 2012 Olympics, and went on to host ITV show Splash! produced by Plymouth based Twofour
Photo by Guy Channing Photography Photos from Plymouth Life Centre
Plymouth Life Centre is one of the country’s leading centres of sporting excellence, and was an official preOlympic Games training camp for the Canadian diving and Lithuanian swimming teams
Darwin spent three months living in Plymouth before he set sail on board HMS Beagle, where he would begin to put together thoughts on a theory that would change the world
Charles Darwin’s friend and defender, Thomas Henry Huxley, was the first president of the Marine Biological Association from 1884-1890 Photo from: Plymouth City Council (Arts and Heritage)
In 1990, ‘Snorkel’ the epileptic Loggerhead Turtle washed ashore on a Cornish beach and was rescued and later moved to Plymouth’s National Marine Aquarium where she now resides
Photo from National Marine Aquarium
Early in 2008 ‘Mad Jack’, a giant 12lb lobster thought to be at least 100 years old became another notable resident of the National Marine Aquarium
Photo from National Marine Aquarium
The earliest pressed plants in the collections at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery were collected over 200 years ago in 1780. They provide a rare glimpse into the types of plants which were used to treat certain types of illnesses
Photo from: Plymouth City Council (Arts and Heritage)
The rich mining history of Devon and Cornwall is kept safe in the form of over 10,000 beautiful mineral specimens stored at Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery
Photo from: Plymouth City Council (Arts and Heritage)
The South West Film and Television Archive holds the largest combined film archive collection in the UK with over 250,000 individual films
Photo from South West Film and Television Archive
The Beatles visited Plymouth three times
They appeared at the city’s ABC venue on the 13th November 1963 and again on the 29th October 1964. The Beatles visited the city a third time in September 1967 while filming the Magical Mystery Tour and an iconic pictures exists of them sitting on the Hoe overlooking the Sound Photo from: Plymouth City Council (Arts and Heritage)
Hyenas roaming the city!
Remains were found in Cattedown Cave in 1886, from humans, hyenas, wolf, deer, woolly mammoth and even rhinoceri
Photo from: Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery/Norfolk Museum Service
Plymouth College of Art has offered higher educational courses as far back as 1894, where students studied for the prestigious RIBA examinations. Over the years Plymouth College of Art has had a wealth of prestigious students including Stanley Nicholas Dabb, who was a student in 1891 and went on to create the Scott Memorial housed at St Paul’s Cathedral.
Plymouth has been the finishing point for the challenging Fastnet yacht race since it began in 1925 for the Fastnet Challenge Cup
Rolex Fastnet Race Photo by Rolex/Kurt Arrigo.
Shhh!
The surviving Titanic crew members came ashore at Millbay in secret
The Citadel Hill Laboratory has always attracted eminent scientists and has welcomed 12 Nobel Laureates, some of whom carried out their prize-winning work in Plymouth
Photo from the Marine Biological Association of the UK
In the Sunday Times Good University Guide, 2014 the University of St Mark & St John was ranked 4th in the UK for Student Satisfaction Photo from the University of St Mark & St John with Teaching Quality
Anchors away!
Captain James Cook set sail from Plymouth in August 1768 on his expedition that rounded Cape Horn and reached Tahiti in 1769
Sir Francis Drake set sail from Plymouth to begin his circumnavigation of the world in 1577 and returned in 1580 with just 59 remaining crew, having started with 164 men and 5 ships
Photo from: Plymouth City Council (Arts and Heritage)
Chew on this
Gum from Plymouth based Wrigley is savoured in over 180 countries
Photo from The Wrigley Company Limited
In one day, the Plymouth factory produces over 3 million packets of chewing gum
Plymouth Sound is a spectacular venue for sailing and has hosted some of the best and most challenging yacht races including America’s Cup World Series 2011, La Route des Princes 2013 and La Solitaire du Figaro 2014
Every care has been taken to ensure the information contained in this publication is correct at time of printing; however, Plymouth City Council cannot be held responsible for any errors, omissions or actions being taken on reliance on it.
To find out more about Plymouth, Britain’s Ocean City contact the Enterprise and Inward Investment team on: T +44 1752 307360 E invest@plymouth.gov.uk W www.plymouth.gov.uk/invest Other useful websites plymouthmuseum.gov.uk loveourpast.co.uk visitplymouth.co.uk plymouth.gov.uk/archives plymouth.gov.uk/archivesswfta southwestimagebank.com