Plymouth

Plymouth sits at the point where the rivers Plym and Tamar meet the sea, on a natural harbour so large and sheltered that it has shaped the city's entire history. This is a working port before it is anything else: the Royal Navy has been based at Devonport, on the western side of the city, since the seventeenth century, and Plymouth Sound has watched ships leave for the Armada, the Mayflower's crossing to America in 1620, and Captain Scott's expeditions to the Antarctic. That maritime weight gives Plymouth a different character to the smaller, prettier resorts further along the Devon and Cornwall coast; it is a proper city, with a working waterfront, a large university, and a skyline mixing Victorian terraces with the rebuilt streets that followed heavy bombing in the Second World War.

The place to start is Plymouth Hoe, the wide grassy headland above the Sound where Sir Francis Drake is said to have finished his game of bowls before sailing out to meet the Spanish Armada in 1588. Smeaton's Tower, a red-and-white striped lighthouse relocated here stone by stone from the Eddystone Reef in the 1880s, still stands as the Hoe's landmark, and the promenade along the clifftop gives long views across the Sound to Cornwall on one side and Mount Batten on the other. Below the Hoe, the Barbican preserves Plymouth's oldest surviving streets, a tight knot of cobbles, independent galleries and old fish market buildings that survived the wartime Blitz that flattened much of the city centre, and from here the Mayflower Steps mark, roughly, where the Pilgrims left English soil for the last time.

Modern Plymouth has grown up around and alongside this history rather than simply preserving it. Royal William Yard, a vast complex of Grade I listed naval victualling buildings on the western waterfront, has been reworked into restaurants, apartments and gallery space without losing its granite bulk and dockyard scale, while the rebuilt city centre around Armada Way and the university campus give Plymouth a busier, more ordinary city feel than its seafront alone would suggest. Beyond the city, Dartmoor National Park begins within a twenty-minute drive, and the South West Coast Path runs both east towards the South Hams and west across the Tamar into Cornwall, meaning Plymouth works equally well as a city break, a walking base or a jumping-off point for the wider Devon and Cornwall coast.

Top things to do in Plymouth

Plymouth's sights are spread between the waterfront, the Barbican and the wider city, with most of the central attractions within easy walking distance of each other.

• Plymouth Hoe is the city's great open space, a clifftop promenade with views across the Sound, home to Smeaton's Tower, war memorials and the art deco Tinside Lido tucked below the cliff at its western end.
• The Barbican preserves Plymouth's old town, a maze of cobbled streets, independent shops and galleries around Sutton Harbour, where the Mayflower Steps and a working fish market still recall the area's seafaring past.
• The National Marine Aquarium, Britain's largest, sits on Sutton Harbour and takes visitors from Devon rock pools through to a deep ocean tank with sharks and rays.
• The Box, Plymouth's museum, gallery and archive, opened in a striking converted school building near the station and holds the city's art, history and natural science collections under one roof, including a large collection of figureheads.
• Royal William Yard, a former Royal Navy victualling yard on the western waterfront, has been converted into restaurants, bars and apartments within its original granite warehouses, with a passenger ferry linking it to the Barbican.
• Black Friars Distillery, home to Plymouth Gin since 1793, is the oldest working gin distillery in England and runs tours and tastings through its historic monastery building near the Barbican.
• Mount Edgcumbe Country Park, reached by a short ferry across the Sound from the Barbican, offers formal gardens, deer parkland and coastal walking on the Cornish side of the water.
• Dartmoor National Park begins around twenty minutes' drive north of the city, offering high open moorland, granite tors and villages such as Yelverton and Princetown for a change of pace from the coast.

Getting to Plymouth

Great Western Railway runs direct trains from London Paddington to Plymouth, taking around three to three and a half hours, with the line continuing on into Cornwall via Saltash and the Royal Albert Bridge. CrossCountry services connect Plymouth to Bristol, Birmingham, the Midlands and the north of England, and local branch lines run out to Gunnislake in the Tamar Valley and along the coast towards Exeter. Plymouth station lies around a fifteen-minute walk or short bus ride north of the Hoe and Barbican, with regular buses covering the route for those who would rather not walk with luggage.

By road, Plymouth sits just off the A38, which links to the M5 near Exeter for London, Bristol and the Midlands, and continues west across the Tamar Bridge into Cornwall. The drive from London typically takes around four hours outside peak traffic. Car parks serve the Barbican, the Hoe and the city centre, including multi-storey options near Drake Circus shopping centre, though the Barbican's own car parks fill quickly on fine weekends and in summer. Plymouth also has a passenger and vehicle ferry link to Roscoff and Santander from the Millbay ferry terminal, and Exeter Airport, around forty-five minutes away by road, offers the nearest scheduled flights.

Best time to visit Plymouth

Spring brings milder weather and quieter streets to Plymouth, with Dartmoor's gorse coming into flower and the Hoe's gardens at their freshest, making it a good time for walking without the summer crowds. Summer is Plymouth at its busiest, with long evenings on the Hoe, ferries running to Mount Edgcumbe and the Cornish coast, and the British Firework Championships lighting up the Sound over several nights each August, drawing large crowds to the waterfront. Autumn tends to stay mild on this stretch of coast, with Dartmoor's colours drawing walkers inland and hotel and campsite prices easing once the school holidays end. Winter is quieter still, with the Barbican's older buildings and The Box's indoor collections coming into their own on wetter days, and the city centre's Christmas lights and markets giving a reason to visit outside the main season, though conditions on the Hoe can be exposed and blustery.

Where to stay in Plymouth

The Hoe is Plymouth's traditional hotel quarter, a run of grand Victorian terraces and larger hotels set back from the clifftop promenade, and suits visitors who want sea views and an easy walk down to the Barbican and Tinside Lido. The Barbican itself, immediately below the Hoe, has a smaller cluster of guest houses and boutique hotels among its cobbled streets, putting restaurants, galleries and the harbour on the doorstep, and works well for a short break built around walking rather than driving. Royal William Yard, on the western waterfront, offers a different kind of stay in restored dockyard buildings, mostly self-catering apartments, and suits visitors who want waterfront dining and a slightly separate, quieter setting a short ferry or taxi ride from the main sights. The city centre, around Armada Way and Drake Circus, has the widest choice of larger chain hotels at more moderate prices, convenient for the station and for business visitors, though further from the seafront than the Hoe or Barbican. Plympton and Plymstock, on the eastern edge of the city, suit visitors travelling by car who want easy access to Dartmoor and the South Hams alongside the city itself, with a quieter, more suburban feel than the centre.

Food and drink in Plymouth

As a fishing port, Plymouth's food scene leans heavily on what comes off its own boats, with Sutton Harbour's fish market supplying restaurants around the Barbican with crab, scallops and whatever else has been landed that morning. The Barbican itself has a good concentration of independent restaurants and pubs, from long-standing seafood spots to newer openings making the most of the harbourside setting, while Royal William Yard has developed its own cluster of waterfront restaurants and bars within the old naval buildings. Black Friars Distillery, tucked among the Barbican's oldest streets, has been distilling Plymouth Gin since the eighteenth century and remains the one spirit that carries the city's name onto bars and shelves well beyond Devon. Plymouth City Market, in the city centre, brings together butchers, fishmongers and local producers under one roof and is a good stop for picking up Devon cheeses, pasties and baked goods rather than eating out. Devon's wider culinary traditions show up throughout the city too, from cream teas served with clotted cream and jam in cafes around the Hoe to ales from breweries in the surrounding countryside, giving Plymouth's food and drink scene a strong regional identity alongside its seafood.