Plymouth Hoe - History

History

John Lucas, sergeant, had 8d. for cutting Gogmagog.

Until the early 17th century large outline images of the giants Gog and Magog (or Goemagot and Corineus) had for a long time been cut into the turf of the Hoe exposing the white limestone beneath. These figures were periodically re-cut and cleaned. No trace of them remains today, but this likely commemorates the Cornish foundation myth, being the point, Lam Goemagot - the Giant's Leap - from which the Giant was cast into the sea by the hero Corin.

Plymouth Hoe is perhaps best known for the probably apocryphal story that Sir Francis Drake played his famous game of bowls here in 1588 while waiting for the tide to change before sailing out with the English fleet to engage with the Spanish Armada. The British Library holds a 1591 Spry map of Plimmouth from this era.

A Tudor fortress guarded the neck of water between the eastern Hoe and Mount Batten and some sheer granite and limestone cannon points remain, however in the late 1660s, following The Restoration, a massive star-shaped stone fortress known as the Royal Citadel, was constructed to replace it. Its purpose was to protect the port and probably also to intimidate the townsfolk who had leaned towards Parliament during the Civil War. It remains occupied by the military.

From 1880 there was a popular bandstand on the Hoe. It was removed for scrap metal during the Second World War and never rebuilt. A three tier belvedere built in 1891 survives; it was built on the site of a camera obscura, probably built in the 1830s, which showed views of the harbour. Below this site was the Bull Ring (now a memorial garden), and a grand pleasure pier, started in 1880, which provided a dance hall, refreshment, promenading and a landing place for boat trips. The pier was destroyed by German bombing in World War II.

There is an imposing series of Victorian terraces to the west of the naval memorial which previously continued to the Grand Hotel and, until it was destroyed by bombing, the grand clubhouse of the Royal Western Yacht Club. The club then merged with the Royal Southern and occupied that club's older premises which it had created from the regency public steam baths by the basin at West Hoe before the rejuvenated club moved in the late 1980s to Queen Anne Battery.