Millbay Residency - a tourism history lesson

SuDS, Stonehouse and Plymouth

Stonehouse was a separate place, a neighbour to Plymouth, until the towns were merged in 1914. Since the turn of the millennium, former Ministry of Defence property in Stonehouse has passed into local city council and then private hands for regeneration of the dockside area, including our area of study, known as Millbay. The first notable leisure and housing project was to convert the Royal William Victualling Yard. Our mission is to find walking routes into and around this emerging tourist area as it changes use to leisure and becomes part of the experience economy. As the writing and photography took shape under the title of The Millbay Residency, a marshland regeneration scheme funded by the European Union's Interreg initiative also reached completion on Bath Street, Plymouth. The local government and the urban regeneration scheme gave this old urban marshland a new French-styled place-brand with the name Millbay Boulevard. How is that connecting with locals? 

November 2022 - Plymouth's Sustainable Urban Drainage Scheme provides tree pits, rain gardens and attentuation tanks with funds from the Resilient Cities scheme of the European Regional Development Fund  

Rain Gardens and Tree-planting

A European urban space was inaugurated - MillBay Boulevard. New pine trees were planted and an underground flood defence system began to regulate the flow of rain water into Mill Bay. The SuDS boulevard protects the surrounding community from flooding by the buffering capacity provided within tanks below the rain gardens.  A safe dry, urban space emerged from the marsh ground. New buildings appeared slowly, contrasting with the workshops that had served the Plymouth Millbay railway station The station was used for goods trains running through to the docks until 30 June 1971. Millbay was beginning to come back to life as a space of travel and tourism. A purpose-built hotel opened during the fieldwork on 13th June 2023 on the east-side of the new boulevard.

Building work underway in November 2022 on Millbay Boulevard, Plymouth UK

"Land at Plymouth and save a day"

If you stand at the front door of the old Duke of Cornwall Hotel, which opened in 1865, and look north across Millbay Road, that was where the entrance to the passenger terminal of the railway station stood. In 1936, when trains could reach speeds of 100 mph, Great Western advertised the station and the ocean dock with the slogan "Land at Plymouth and save a day".  Trans-Atlantic passengers disembarking at Plymouth from liners bound for London via Le Havre could save this time by taking the train from here, a train journey of only 3 hours 54 minutes.  The last trans-Atlantic passengers stepped from ship to train in 1963. However, on 2 January 1973 Brittany Ferries began their service from Roscoff the day after the UK joined the European Community, on 1st January 1973. Then, on 24th January 1974, Brittany Ferries brought its first passengers to Plymouth on board the new Penn-Ar-Bed.  

The vessel, Penn-Ar-Bed, sailing from Roscoff, 1974. Image courtesy of Brittany Ferries. 

Fin Steps to Soap Street

We walked down Fin Steps onto Soap Street and discovered the rails for the goods wagons preserved in the grassed seating area on the dock. It's from here that you can see Plymouth's Brittany Ferries terminal, East Quay and on the day we were there in spring 2023, a cruise ship bound for the Western Isles of Scotland.

Keep up-to-date with the Millbay Residency using IG Threads. Share your images and thoughts of Millbay Boulevard on the new Threads App by adding to the Millbay Boulevard thread on threads...

On 6th July 2023 The Threads Microblogging App was launched. 

The new vessel, Pont Aven in Plymouth's Mill Bay. Image courtesy of Brittany Ferries.