Mutley Plain is a street in

Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

, England. Although Mutley Plain is the main street of the dense suburb called Mutley, the term is often applied to the whole area. The road is now a busy dual-carriageway, the B3250, with eight sets of traffic lights/pelican crossings. It was built as a smart tree-lined avenue in late Victorian times and improved over the next half century as a local shopping place for its neighbourhood and the affluent area to the north.

History

Mutley Plain lies on the route of an ancient road linking Bilburgh, a

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

settlement on the coast at Sutton Pool which later formed the nucleus of the city of Plymouth, to the north. Mutley was originally the name of two parishes to the west of this road in the valley of the Houndiscombe Brook, the land to the east being part of the parish of Lipson. Before the Norman invasion in 1066, the parish of Higher Mutley was owned by a man named Alwin of Tamerton, and Lower Mutley by another man called Goodwin, but at the time of the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

(1086) both were owned by Odo, whose feudal overlord was

Juhel of Totnes Juhel de Totnes (died 1123/30) (''alias'' Juhel fitz Alfred, Juhel de Mayenne, Judel, Judhel, Judael, Judhael, Joel, Judhel de Totenais), Latinised to Judhellus filius Aluredi, "Juhel son of Alured") was a soldier and supporter of William the Con ...

. In the

the two

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

es were said to be worth five

shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currency, currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 1 ...

s each. Lower Mutley had two farms while Higher Mutley consisted of ten sheep, one farm and two

smallholding A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technolo ...

Railway

A tunnel was driven beneath Mutley Plain by the

South Devon Railway Company The South Devon Railway Company built and operated the railway from Exeter to Plymouth and Torquay in Devon, England. It was a broad gauge railway built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The line had to traverse difficult hilly terrain, and the compa ...

and was opened to traffic on 2 April 1849. Formerly this was the site of Mutley Station, opened 1 August 1871 and known as the 'Station of the

Gentry Gentry (from Old French , from ) are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. ''Gentry'', in its widest connotation, refers to people of good social position connected to Landed property, landed es ...

'. It was closed 2 March 1939. The Plymouth-bound platform can still be just made out to the south of Apsley Road. The cutting to the east of the station has been covered over by a car park. Plymouth Railway Station is on the boundary between Mutley Plain and Plymouth City Centre.

Present day

Owing to its proximity to the expanding

Plymouth University The University of Plymouth is a public research university based predominantly in Plymouth, England, where the main campus is located, but the university has campuses and affiliated colleges across South West England. With students, it is the ...

and the city centre, large numbers of students now live in the area. There are many pubs, bars, restaurants, takeaways and cafes as well as three small supermarkets. There are also more than a dozen barbers and beauty salons along with a good few estate agents. There are secondary schools very close by at Ford Park and at the brow of North Hill. Mutley Baptist Church is a notable architectural feature. The area is mostly built up except for a small park on Moor View Terrace however

Central Park Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...

and

Ford Park Cemetery Ford Park Cemetery is a cemetery in central Plymouth, England, established by the Plymouth, Stonehouse & Devonport Cemetery Company in 1846 and opened in 1848. At the time it was outside the boundary of the Three Towns and was created to allev ...

are nearby.

References

*Davies,Sian (2013-05-23
Supermarket planned for Mutley
{{City of Plymouth Streets in Plymouth, Devon