OLD PLYMOUTH . UK
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ROADS AND STREETS IN OLD PLYMOUTH

CATTE STREET

Catte Street is in the centre of this extract from Benjamin Donn's map of Plymouth of 1765.
It ran from what was then called Market Street, later High Street, eastwards to become Stillman Street.

Market Street became High Street but Catte Street still linked it to Stillman Street.

In his "Calendar of the Plymouth Municipal Records, published in 1893, antiquarian R N Worth quotes from an undated rental, probably of the early 16th century, 'Katt strete', and from a Town Rental of 1706 that: 'Cat Street begins from pomroys conduit to Mr Cownes'.

On Benjamin Donn's map of 1765 reproduced above it is clearly shown as "Cat Street".

Quoted in its earliest form as "Katt Strete", this is supposed to be a back formation from Cattewater.  The "Catte" is also thought to refer to a rock formation at the entrance to the Cattewater.  The earliest Ordnance Survey maps refer to Bears Head Rock where Queen Anne's Battery was later constructed.  This may have given the appearance of a cat at one time.

It was in a small, first-floor room over a shop in Catte Street that the Plymouth Mutual Co-operative and Industrial Society commenced trading in 1860.

By 1890 Catte Street had been absorbed into Stillman Street.