Plymouth; Tuesday, 17 June, 2008

After another quite frankly useless breakfast box, I checked out of the hotel. I had wanted to leave my luggage at the hotel as it was over eight hours until my train, and I didn’t really fancy dragging it around with me all day, but the hotel claimed that they had no luggage space at all. In the end I finally tracked down some left luggage lockers at the bus station, and then headed up onto the Hoe.

My first tourist stop of the day was a Smeatons tower. 14 miles off the coast of Plymouth are the Eddystone rocks. These are some of the most dangerous rocks around the British Isles and have, over the years, claimed a huge toll in vessels and lives. Towards the end of the 17th Century a lighthouse was erected on the rocks. Sadly, the lighthouse was washed away during a storm. So a second lighthouse was built. This one had to be replaced after the lantern caught light and burnt down. A third tower was built by Smeaton. This proved to be more study and lasted for over 100 years, before it became clear that, whilst the lighthouse was fine, the rock it was standing on was being undermined by the sea. A new lighthouse was built, but Smeatons was dismantled and brought back to land, and rebuilt, piece by piece, on the Hoe. Today you can climb the tower and see what life in a lighthouse might have been like (cramped) and take in the views over Plymouth from the lantern room and balcony.

Having looked around the tower I walked down to the sea front and joined one of the many tour boats which go out into the sound and then up the Taymar past the Navel Dockyard at Devonport. After the tour I headed back towards the Barbican for a spot of lunch, before wandering round to the Citadel for the afternoon tour.

The Royal Citadel was built between 1666 and 1670, partly as defence from the sea, but also to send a message to the strongly parliamentarian town of Plymouth that the Royals were now back in charge. The story goes that there are more guns trained on the town of Plymouth than out onto the sound, whilst it’s not actually true, there are a substantial number of points from which the town could be fired on.

The Citadel has been in use by the army since it’s opening, and today it still is. The outer walls are maintained by English Heritage, and twice a week, as part of the deal there are guided tours of the citadel and chapel.

From the Citadel I walked back down to the Barbican and visited my last attraction of the trip, the Plymouth Gin distillery. Having sampled some of their produce it was time to totter back to the bus station, pick up my luggage, head back to the station and start the long journey back home.