The Tamar Bridges Or rather... and other Plymouth, United Kingdom General Tips

Favorite Thing: The Tamar Bridges

Or rather on your departure from Plymouth on crossing the River Tamar into Cornwall, do look at the magnificent Royal Albert Bridge, which carries the railway line over the river. Built by Isambard Kingom Brunel, and opened in 1859 by Prince Albert (husband of Queen Victoria), it is one of his greatest triumphs. It is constructed of malleable iron plates, is nearly half a mile long, and crosses the Tamar at a height of a hundred feet above high water by two arches, each 445 feet wide. They are both spanned by oval tubes, 17 feet by 12 feet in diameter. The construction of the bridge at that time was a remarkable feat of engineering, and the bridge today is little altered from its original design. The bridge was built at this height on insturctions from the British Admiralty in order that the masts of the warships, at that time powered by sail only, should clear the bridge at all states of the tide. The photo shows one of the spans, nearest to the Cornish side of the river. The less attractive bridge behind it was built in 1961 and carries the main A38 road from Devon into Cornwall. It was built to replace the old chain-ferry which crossed the river just below the bridge. The ferry was a major link between Devon and Cornwall. A similar ferry is still in use further down the river between Torpoint and Devonport.


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Favorite Thing: Another view of the Barbican. This is Sutton Harbour with the National Maritime Aquarium in the centre of the picture. On the extreme left is the Mayflower Memorial and the steps, where the Pilgrim Fathers left for America in 1620.


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Favorite Thing: The Historic Barbican

Bring your camera, lots of film and a good guide book with you! Plymouth is so full of history that it is difficult to know where to start this VT journey. Without doubt the most attractive and historic area today (my belief, but others may disagree) is the Barbican. Raleigh's was the first practical attempt to colonise the New World, and the spirit of enterprise that he and his companions exhibited bore fruit in 1606, when charters for colonising North America were granted by James I. to two companies - one formed in Plymouth and the other in London.

A few years later - in 1620 - Plymouth shared in another great colonising movement, when the 'Mayflower' sailed to New England. We are all familiar with the story of this little barque of only 180 tons, how it sailed from Southampton and was forced to take refuge in Plymouth Sound; how the hundred and one emigrants for conscience sake were courteously entertained and kindly used by divers Christians there living; and how, when the terrors of the passage across the Atlantic were at an end and they landed on the barren shores of Massachusetts Bay to found the great Republic of the West, they gave the name of Plymouth to the spot at which they landed. The photo is of the Mayflower Memorial and Steps. The plaques in the wall either side of the Memorial are reminders of other historic events, and I hope to place this information in a separate travelogue in due course.


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Favorite Thing: Australia and New Zealand

Remember what happened after the 'Pilgrim Fathers'. Nearly 150 years later it was a Plymouth expedition that opened up Australasia to the English settlers. In 1768 Captain Cook left Plymouth in the ship 'Endeavour', and explored the shores of New Zealand and New South Wales. This voyage was followed by another in 1772, when Cook, in the two warships 'Resolution' and 'Discovery', again weighed anchor in Plymouth Sound and sailed to Australian waters, on further explorations. These two voyages revealed something of the potentialities buried in the then almost unknown continent, and the British Parliament, having no place of banishment for criminals since the loss of the American colonies, determined' in 1786, to found a penal colony in Botany Bay, and early in 1787 the first party of 800 convicts left England for Australia. (Another picture to follow)


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