You walk out onto a broad green above the sea, and there it stands: a candy-striped lighthouse in red and white, marooned on the grass far from any reef. Behind it the great sweep of Plymouth Sound opens to the horizon, ships riding at anchor, the long dark line of the Breakwater beyond.
This is Plymouth Hoe, and beneath it lies the Barbican, a maze of Tudor streets from which one small ship once set sail to change the world.
Plymouth is one of England's great historic ports, a naval and trading town since the Middle Ages, and the base from which Drake, Hawkins and Raleigh put to sea. It stands where the Tamar and Plym rivers, both drowned valleys, meet the vast natural harbour of the Sound, sheltered by its Breakwater and floored with slate and limestone.
In fifteen eighty-eight the English fleet sailed from here to meet the Spanish Armada. In sixteen twenty the Mayflower left the Barbican carrying the Pilgrim Fathers to America. The red-and-white tower on the Hoe is Smeaton's Tower, the third Eddystone lighthouse, built in seventeen fifty-nine out on its dangerous reef and re-erected here on the Hoe in eighteen eighty-two when a new light replaced it.
The city around you was heavily bombed in the Second World War and largely rebuilt, but along the waterfront the old stories survive. For all the new streets behind it, the Hoe and the Barbican still carry the memory of the age of sail, when Plymouth was one of the doorways through which England reached out to the world.
Here is what to look for. First, Smeaton's Tower itself, standing on the Hoe where you can walk right up to it, in season even climb its spiral stair for the view over the Sound. Second, that view, the wide harbour, the anchored warships, the Breakwater and the two headlands framing the sea, a maritime panorama with few equals in England.
Third, the Royal Citadel, the great seventeenth-century fortress at the eastern end of the Hoe, its high ramparts still guarding the approaches. Fourth, the Barbican below, a district of Tudor and Jacobean streets, narrow cobbled lanes and old warehouses gathered around the working fish quay.
And fifth, the Mayflower Steps down on the Barbican waterfront, marking the spot from which the Pilgrims are remembered to have embarked, with the National Marine Aquarium close by, showcasing the life of these local seas.
But the tale everyone tells on the Hoe is Drake's. In the summer of fifteen eighty-eight, so the legend runs, Sir Francis Drake was at a game of bowls here on this very green when word came that the Spanish Armada had been sighted in the Channel. Urged to hurry to his ships, Drake is said to have refused to be flustered, insisting there was time enough to finish his game and beat the Spaniards too.
Whether he truly spoke the words or not, the story has clung to this place for centuries, a picture of cool English nerve in the face of an invasion fleet. Stand on the Hoe, look out at the water he was watching, and the legend feels very close to hand.
From the Barbican the Coast Path threads out of the city along the waterfront and on toward Wembury, trading Tudor streets for open cliff once more. Before you go, walk down to the Mayflower Steps and stand where those travellers stood, looking out at the same grey water that carried them west, into an unknown so vast it is hard to fathom now. This is a busy urban waterfront, so watch the traffic and the quay edges. In an emergency, contact the local emergency services. Walk safe.
