Stonehouse, Plymouth

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East Stonehouse is one of three towns that were amalgamated into modern-day Plymouth.
West Stonehouse was a village that is within the current Mount Edgcumbe Country Park in Cornwall. It was destroyed by the French in 1350. The terminology used in this article refers to the settlement of East Stonehouse which is on the Devon side of the mouth of the Tamar estuary, and will be referred to as Stonehouse.

Settlement in the area goes back to Roman times and a house made of stone was believed to have stood near to Stonehouse Creek. However other stories relate to land owned in the 13th century by Robert the Bastard. This land subsequently passed to the Durnford family through marriage to the Edgecombe family in the 14th and 15th centuries.

During the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries the areas of Emma Place and Caroline Place were home to many of the west country's top-ranking admirals, doctors and clergy. Those streets together with Millbay Road are the heart of Plymouth's residual red light district. Union Street, originally built across marshland, was for almost a century the centre of the city's night life with about a hundred pubs, a music hall and many other attractions. Much of it was destroyed by bombing in World War II. After the war the area between Union Street and the dock has been used by small factories, storage, car dealers and repairers. Since 2002 many of those buildings and yards have been cleared and are being replaced by high density residential building.

[edit] Notable Buildings

Significant buildings include the Royal William Victualling Yard, the Royal Naval Hospital, Stonehouse and the Royal Marine Barracks. Of these three defence complexes only the Barracks remains in Naval possession, the other two were sold and are now converted to predominently residential use.

During the reign of Henry VII defences at the mouth of the Tamar were strengthened by the building of cannon bearing towers. One of these, the Artillery Tower at the sea end of Durnford Street, has been preserved as a restaurant.

Two of the surviving buildings close to the dock at Millbay are the red brick portland stone-faced Georgian assembly room that is still called the Long Room, and the exquisite late Georgian or early Victorian Globe Theatre 300m north within the RMB. These were built largely for the pleasures of the officer class and their gentry friends.

On the higher ground towards North Road are two major churches. Firstly the Anglican St Peter's with its tall spire in the centre of Georgian style Wyndham Square. A few hundred metres east is the late Victorian catholic cathedral. Both buildings have recently been restored with reordered interiors to meet modern liturgical preferences.

[edit] Regeneration

Gradually affluent residents are moving back into the district which has been comparatively poor since the Great War. Durnford Street is being regentrified. The walled enclosures of the Royal William Yard and the old Naval Hospital (known as the Millfields) are gated communities with security guards. The government's pressure to develop mixed quality high density dwellings on brownfield sites in inner cities has led to new residential blocks having been built throughout the area^{[citation needed]}. Planned post war as a primarily commercial/industrial area it is now perceptably changing its character. What was a dozen or so years ago viewed as one of the poorest and most deprived areas in north west Europe is fast losing that image.

On Stonehouse Creek, a branch of the Tamar, off the estuary known as the Hamoaze are the modern ship-building sheds occupied by the luxury motor-yacht firm Princess Yachts who employ hundreds of local tradesmen to construct and fit out expensive vessels. The creek now ends at Stonehouse Bridge (for many years a toll bridge) and to the north east the wide river bed which led up past Millbridge to Pennycomequick and beyond to the bottom of Ford Park cemetery, has been reclaimed and infilled to provide the playing fields of Victoria Park, rugby pitches for Devonport High School for Boys, and nearest the bridge a large hardstanding used several days a week for Plymouth's biggest car boot sales. To the north is the main campus of what was Plymouth College of Further Education, now called City College.

Stonehouse is the site of Plymouth's international ferry port at Millbay Docks with at least daily sailings to Roscoff in Brittany and frequent ferries to Santander in northern Spain. Until the 1950s transatlantic liners would offload passengers who wished to catch a fast train to London rather than spend another day onboard going up Channel.

There is a regular passenger ferry from the tidal landing Admiral's Hard to Cremyll in Cornwall which is used for visitors to the Mount Edgcumbe Country Park, and commuters to Plymouth.

[edit] Sport

Stonehouse Glass FC is the area's minor football team and currently plays in the Plymouth and West Devon Combination Sunday Section Division 3. They recently won that division and will be playing in Division 2 in the 2008/09 season.[1]