Church (1658) at its head, the last-named being popularly known as New Church, in contradistinction to St Andrews or "Old Church." The New Church is an interesting specimen of Stuart "debased" Gothic architecture. South of Andrews church is the site of a Franciscan Friary with some early 15th-century remains. Near the church are a few old houses scattered along the crooked little streets going down to the water. These houses date from Elizabethan times, but are not of any unusual interest. The Citadel (now used as army headquarters and barracks) is a fine specimen of 17th-century military architecture. It is an irregular bastion ed pentagon in trace. It possesses a fine florid classical gateway. In the centre stands a dignified Jacobean house once the residence of the governor of Plymouth.
Plymouth is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishopric founded in 1851, the cathedral, in Wyndham Street, being completed in 1858 through the efforts of Bishop Vaughan, who was the second occupant of the see (until 1902). The building is in the Early English style, and adjoining are the bishop's house and the convent of Notre Dame. In the immediate vicinity is the only Presbyterian church in the Three Towns. Noteworthy among the many Nonconformist places of worship are the Baptist chapel (George Street), with its tablet recording the imprisonment of ministers on Drake's Island, Sherwell (Congregational) on the Tavistock Road, the most ornate in its style of architecture; the Wesleyan Methodist chapel in the main thoroughfare of the residential suburb of Mutley, unique among Methodist edifices in the town in respect of its fine spire. All the principal religious bodies have places for worship or for assembly in the town, and the borough has given, in popular speech, the name of "Plymouth Brethren" to one body.
In addition to the Plymouth College (for boys), there are several educational institutions administered by the borough council, comprising a science, art and technical school, a mixed secondary school replacing the corporation grammar school of Elizabethan foundation, and intermediate day and evening school and numerous primary departments. The philanthropic institutions include the enlarged South Devon and East Cornwall hospital, eye infirmary homoeopathic hospital, blind institution and female orphan asylum.
The public recreation grounds, other than the Hoe, are few and small; Hartley Reservoir Grounds at the northern extremity of the town commands extensive moorland views; the Freedom Park, by its plain, unfinished monument, recalls the siege of Plymouth by the Royalists in 1646, and the Beaumont Park contains the temporary home of the nucleus for a museum and art gallery. The Victoria Park, reclaimed from a part of Stonehouse Creek, is under the joint administration of Plymouth, Stonehouse and Devonport.
The township of East Stonehouse, having Plymouth on the east is separated from Devonport on the west by the Stonehouse Pool Creek, which is crossed by a toll-bridge and thoroughfare known locally as the "Half-penny Gate Bridge." A manor of the Mount Edgcumbe family, East Stonehouse, is an urban district, in the administrative county of Devon, with a council of 15 members, but is united for parliamentary purposes with Devonport, with which it returns two members. Within the boundaries of Stonehouse are the Royal Naval Hospital (1762), the Royal Marine Barracks (1795) in Dumford Street, and the Royal William Victualing Yard (1825), the last-named having frontage on the Hamoaze, which separates the Devon from the Cornish portion of the Stonehouse manor.
The Stanehus(e) of Domesday Book ultimately passed into the hands of the Valletorts, whose hamlet of West Stonehouse stood on the Cornish side of the Tamar, for (to quote Carew's Survey) "certaine old ruines yet remaining confirm the neighbours report that near the water's side, there stood once a towne called West stone house until the French (1350?) by fire and sword overthrew it."
St George's (1798) is the oldest of the three parishes of Stonehouse, and on the site of the present church stood the chapel of St George, in which, during the years 1681–1682, worshipped, in addition to the English congregation, one composed, as at Plymouth, of Huguenots who fled from France at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
Facing the Sound are Stone Hall and the Winter Villa. The former, occupied by the lords of the manor before the building of Mount Edgcumbe House, was originally a castellated building, and the latter was built primarily as an alternative residence for a countess of Mount Edgcumbe. A link with the past is the Mill Bridge Causeway, over what was the "Dead Lake," now a road, which, at the head of Stonehouse Creek, is the second approach to the Stoke Damerel portion of Devonport. Built in 1525, it possesses a toll-gate house at which payment from vehicles is still demanded.
In addition to the Victualling Yard, with its naval ordnance department, repairing shops and armoury, the Barracks, accommodating some 1500 men, and the Naval Hospital of 24 acres, abutting on the Creek, there are within the boundaries a theatre seating over 2000 persons, the Devonport Corporation Electricity Works, a clothing factory and part of the Great Western Railway Docks. The stationer character of the township—which from its situation is incapable of expansion—is seen from the statistics of population:(1881), 15,041; (1901), 15,108; (1910), 15,111.
The "Port of Plymouth" in 1311 embraced Plympton, Modbury and Newton Ferrers, and received a customs grant
