A Trip to Plymouth, Part One

Keith here. It’s been a nice relaxing Monday around the flat after a big weekend trip to the South West, as Brits call the southern tip of England.

Our final excursion as a group was to Plymouth and the surrounding area for the students’ Geography class. Clive Charlton, the instructor for our class and a professor of geography at the University of Plymouth, explained that geography is all about studying what’s in a locality, and trying to discover how what’s there affects the way people live -- and is affected by the way people live. We got a good taste of that this weekend and saw a good bit of a part of the UK that’s quite different from London.

Plymouth is a city of about 250,000 people, not quite among the Top 10 cities in England in population. It’s in an area of England called Cornwall. For centuries, we learned, the people there have been an independent lot, with a sense almost of separate “nationhood” and culture. (Having lived in Texas for nearly five years, Jayne and I can relate to that sensibility.) Historically, it’s famous as the embarking point for the Pilgrims’ voyage to America in 1620, and before that, as the home of Sir Francis Drake, conqueror of the Spanish Armada. More on him later.

The first stop for the visitor in Plymouth is The Hoe, a large grassy area leading to the city’s waterfront. Legend has it that Drake was playing a game of bowls here when he was informed that the Spanish fleet was on its way to attack the English coast. There’s plenty of evidence of city’s role in the defense of the country here, with memorials to those killed in the World Wars and ships from a nearby naval yard visible on the harbor. Another unmistakable part of the landscape is The Citadel, an imposing fortification at the water’s edge built during the reign of King Charles II -- as much, some say, to keep an eye on the rebellious residents of Plymouth, supporters of Oliver Cromwell in the English Civil War, as to defend against foreign attackers.

Saturday’s tour of the coastal area south of Cornwall was another “big picture” lesson in how a place adapts to a changing economy. We learned that Cornwall was a mining center for years, with rich deposits of tin, copper, and other minerals in the rolling countryside. You can still see excavated areas where there used to be mines. The mining industry started leaving in the 1850s, and many of the miners emigrated to Australia, Canada, the United States and even Mexico. By the start of the 20th century, mining was history here.

The towns on the coast depended -- and to some extent still depend on -- fishing, with tourism now a a major source of income, too. Our tour took us to the picturesque seacoast towns of Looe and Polperro on the English Channel. (You probably don’t think of "going to the beach” in your mental images of England, and both reminded me a little of some of the ramshackle coastal villages I’ve known and loved in my lifetime, like Folly Beach, S.C., and Cedar Key, Fla. -- same funky little beach cottages and cafes, fishing piers, arcades and souvenir shops.) It was a fun day that the students enjoyed and we managed to beat a terrible rainstorm back to the hotel.