Plympton (Devon)
Plympton is a district of the south-west English city of Plymouth . The district has around 35,000 inhabitants and was an important trading center in the Middle Ages.
location
Plympton is about 8 km northeast of Plymouth and about 3 km east of the River Plym , about 3 km above its mouth in the Plymouth Sound . The center of Plympton St Maurice lies in a side valley of the Plym.
history
The origins of Plympton go back to the Anglo-Saxon period. A pen in Plymentum was first mentioned in 904 , in the Domesday Book of 1086 the place is referred to as Plintona . The name means plum tree village in Old English , this name was carried over to the river and thus later to the city of Plymouth.
Plympton St Mary
The pen mentioned in 904 was a pen of canons . In 1121 it was converted into an Augustinian canons by the Bishop of Exeter , which became the richest monastery in Devon . During the Reformation the monastery was abolished in 1539 and the collegiate church was converted into a parish church . The surrounding villages of Ridgway , Underwood and Colebrook were combined in the over 40 km² rural district of Plympton St Mary . In 1848 Plympton St Mary received a station on the South Devon Railway . The railway line was shut down in 1959.
Plympton St Maurice
After the Norman conquest , the Anglo-Saxon settlement on the road to Exeter fell to Richard de Redvers . Richard or his son Baldwin de Redvers built a castle in the place. Baldwin de Redvers was named the first Earl of Devon in 1241 , which means that the place was named Plympton Earl or Alder to distinguish it from the monastery , and later the name Plympton St Maurice after the parish church .
In the 12th century a navigable arm of the Plym ran directly to Plympton St Maurice, so that the settlement around the castle developed into a trading center. No later than 1155 the place was given the status of a borough . From 1295 she was allowed to send two representatives to parliament . After Tavistock , Ashburton and Chagford , it became the fourth Stannary Town in 1328 , in which the tin mined in Dartmoor was weighed, cleared and stamped. In the 16th century, the place was an important trading place for tin, wool and other products. However, mining in Dartmoor led to the demise of Plymptons. At that time, tin was extracted in the Dartmoor by washing, which is why the streams and rivers were heavily polluted with suspended matter. As early as 1512, the MP Richard Strode complained that the Plym was no longer navigable due to the silting up by mining. However, his protest was in vain. The plym became more and more muddy, which is why the trade shifted to the city of Plymouth, located on the estuary. Although Plympton was given a royal charter in 1602 and the right to elect a mayor, it lost its importance as a trading center. The population was also declining, so that the place with its two parliamentary electoral districts was considered a Rotten borough . Of the 1,015 inhabitants in 1831, only 54 were eligible to vote, who elected members of the noble families Treby , Trevor or Edgcumbe or other candidates such as the architect Christopher Wren or the Minister of War Robert Stewart in return for donations . In the electoral reform of 1832 , Plympton eventually lost both of its constituencies. The congregation became impoverished because it no longer received grants from constituency holders, and even had to sell a self-portrait given to the city by Joshua Reynolds to the Earl of Egremont in 1837 . The last time a mayor could be elected in 1859. Plympton sank into a rural parish which in 1878 consisted of four small streets.
On April 1, 1967, both parishes of Plympton St Mary and Plympton St Maurice were incorporated together with Plymstock of Plymouth, with some areas of Plympton St Mary fell to the District of South Hams .
Attractions
The old town of Plympton St Maurice with Fore Street contains the following buildings as well as numerous houses from the 17th and 18th centuries.
town hall
The first town hall was built on Fore Street as early as the 13th century. The current building dates from 1688. After no new mayor was elected in 1860, it was used as a music hall from 1862. The two-story building has an open arcade on the ground floor, the former council chamber is on the upper floor.
Castle
Plympton Castle was built as a Motte around 1100 and finally destroyed in 1647. Wall remains of the keep on the castle hill are still present.
St Maurice Church
The first church was built as a castle chapel after 1172. At the end of the 12th century the patronage was changed to Thomas Becket . The current quarry stone structure with flat slate roofs was mainly built in the 15th century in the Perpendicular Style , the west tower was completed in 1446. During the Reformation the patronage was changed back to St Maurice in 1538 . The church was restored in 1878, the barrel vault was reconstructed in 1905.
Grammar School
Opposite the church is the former grammar school . The Plympton Grammar School was founded by the lawyer Elize Hele (1560-1635), who was born on Winston Manor near Plympton. The school was founded in 1658, the two-storey school building in Jacobean style was completed in 1671. The school closed in 1903, but reopened in 1921. In 1937 the school moved to a new building in the northwest of Plymptons, and in 1983 it was renamed Hele's School .
Plympton House
Plympton House, a stately, two-story country house with a central projectile and seven window axes, is located northeast of the church and the castle in an approximately 3 hectare walled garden. It was built in the late 17th century for George Treby (1643–1700), who was Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas in 1689 . The construction was completed around 1720 by his son George Treby (1684–1741). The house remained in the possession of the Treby family and their heirs in the 18th century. From 1835 it was used as an asylum . The Catholic Church acquired the house in the 20th century and has been using it as a nursing home ever since.
St Mary's Church
The former Augustinian monastery was about 500 m northwest of Plympton St Maurice between the Tory Brook and Longbrook , two small tributaries of the River Plym. The former collegiate church still has a choir room decorated in the 14th century, the rest of the church was built in the 15th century in the perpendicular style. The church, built of limestone and covered with gently sloping slate roofs, has a west tower made of granite. The former monastery buildings, which enclosed a cloister, have not been preserved. Today the church is surrounded by modern residential buildings.
Saltram House
2km west of Plympton is surrounded by a large landscaped park Saltram House , a magnificent mansion in the Georgian style.
sons and daughters of the town
- Richard Burthogge (1637 / 38–1705), doctor and philosopher
- Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), painter
- Cyril Henry Hoskin (1910-1981), writer
- Paul Rogers (1917-2013), actor
- David Owen (* 1938), politician
Web links
- Plympton The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History
- Plympton St Maurice Civic Association
- Private homepage about Plympton
Individual evidence
- ^ Plympton the Stannary town. Plympton St Maurice Civic Association. Retrieved April 11, 2013 .
- ↑ Plympton Alder. History of Parliament Online, accessed April 11, 2013 .
- ^ Grammar School. Plympton St Maurice Civic Association. Retrieved April 11, 2013 .
- ^ Plympton St Maurice Guildhall. (No longer available online.) Plymouth City Council, archived from the original on May 9, 2013 ; Retrieved April 11, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Church of St Maurice. The National Heritage List for England, accessed April 12, 2013 .
- ↑ History of Heles School. (PDF; 210 kB) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on September 24, 2015 ; Retrieved April 11, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Plympton House. The National Heritage List for England, accessed April 11, 2013 .
- ^ Plympton Priory. The National Heritage List for England, accessed April 11, 2013 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 23 '1.4 " N , 4 ° 2' 55.3" W.