OLD PLYMOUTH . UK
www.oldplymouth.uk
 

©  Brian Moseley, Plymouth
Webpage created: February 12, 2019
Webpage updated: February 16, 2019

        

ROADS AND STREETS IN OLD PLYMOUTH - A-Z INDEX

POUND STREET

A 1930s view of Pound Street, with Cobourg Street in the distance.
This was the terminus of some Western National motorbus services and
the bus is seen turning to get to the bus stops on the right.
© Devon and Cornwall Police Museum, Exeter, formerly property of City of Plymouth Police Force.

Pound Street existed in 1820 as an unnamed highway linking Cobourg Place, later Cobourg Street, with the main Tavistock Road.  It was originally part of what was known as Old Town Without the Wall, as it was outside the Old Town Gate.  The Corporation's Cattle Market (officially in Glanville Street) and Cattle Pound were on its northern side from circa 1860 until the Plymouth Technical College was built on part of the site in 1889.  It is best remembered for its array of advertising hoardings by the inward-bound bus stops, which were known as "Harvest Home" from the nearby Public House of that name.

The advertising hoardings in Pound Street that hid the Plymouth Cattle Market from the public, 1952.
The tall buildings are the Plymouth Technical College.
© City of Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery.

There was only one occupant of Pound Street in 1852 - Mr John Gent and his family, who lived and worked at King's Mill, otherwise the Lower Grist Mill.  Mr Gent senior was the miller and he employed six men.  HE had been born in Pennycross in 1818.  His two daughters and three sons, including a John Gent junior, were all born in the parish of Bickleigh.

Immediately next door to the Harvest Home Public House in Tavistock Road
 (the gateway to the stables is on the left of this picture) were these shops.
  On the first floor of the building, accessed through the door in Compton Street,
 was the Plymouth Co-operative Society dental department.
© City of Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery.

Messrs F T B Lawson Limited's temporary post-war premises were in Pound Street, 1960.
© City of Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery.

The corner shop with Saltash Street on the right, 1960.
Note the advertising hoardings.
© City of Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery.

Although Pound Street still exists physically, as a continuation of Cobourg Street up past the University to Tavistock Road, it no longer carries the separate name.