Where to Stay in Plymouth, England

What is Plymouth known for?

Plymouth is the great naval port of Devon, guarding the water where the Plym and the Tamar reach the sea. Above the harbour the Royal Citadel still crowns the high ground, its ramparts facing the sound. The sea runs through everything here.

Visitors reach the waterfront at the National Marine Aquarium, The Box gathers the city's museums and archives under one roof, and Mount Edgcumbe House looks back across the Tamar from the Cornish shore. Warships and history fill the place, from HMS Courageous to the Armada Memorial on the seafront.

What are the main landmarks in Plymouth?

Plymouth's landmarks gather along the water and the high ground of the Hoe. The Royal Citadel dominates the seafront, a seventeenth-century fortress above the sound, and the Royal Chapel of St Katherine-upon-the-Hoe sits nearby on the open headland. Museums crowd the harbour edge.

The National Marine Aquarium and The Box hold the sea and the archives, the Elizabethan House Museum survives among the old lanes, and Charles Church stands roofless as a war memorial. Mount Batten Tower guards the far side of the sound, and Mount Edgcumbe House looks over from Cornwall.

What is the history of Plymouth?

Plymouth rose as a harbour town where the Plym and the Tamar reach the sea in Devon. Its deep sound and sheltered water made it one of England's foremost naval ports, and fleets sailed from here for centuries. The Royal Citadel set the seal on that role.

Charles II raised the great fortress above the sound in the seventeenth century, its guns facing both the sea and the town, and the dockyards spread west along the Tamar into the districts that grew up around the navy. War reshaped the city more than once. The old harbour kept its Elizabethan House Museum and its narrow lanes, but bombing in the twentieth century gutted the centre, leaving Charles Church a roofless shell kept as a memorial.

Rebuilding drew the modern streets inland behind the Hoe, while The Box now gathers what the city saved of its past. The sea has never let go of Plymouth.

Where is Plymouth?

Plymouth stands on the south coast of Devon, England, at the mouth of two rivers. The Plym enters the sea on the eastern side and the Tamar on the west, and between them the sheltered water of the sound opens toward the Channel below the Hoe and the Royal Citadel. The city faces Cornwall across the Tamar. Exeter lies to the north-east and London far to the east, but Plymouth's outlook is set firmly toward the sea and the ships that work its harbour.

What is the climate of Plymouth?

Plymouth has the mild, wet maritime climate of England's south-west coast. The sea keeps its winters gentle and its summers cool, and Atlantic weather rolls in over Devon to bring frequent rain and strong wind off the sound. Hard frost is rare here.

Cloud and shower come through every season, mild air holds late into the year, and the salt weather blows steadily across the Hoe and the exposed water below the Royal Citadel.

How do you get to Plymouth?

Plymouth sits at the far end of the main line into the south-west of England. Trains run down through Devon from London and Exeter to the city's station, tracing the coast for part of the way, and the main road follows the same route west. Rail and road carry most arrivals.

Ferries also sail from the harbour across to France and Spain, and the crossing of the Tamar links the city to Cornwall, but the train from Exeter and London carries the bulk of arrivals to the streets below the Royal Citadel.