Plympton

Plympton is a suburb on the east side of Plymouth, Devon, made up of two old parishes, Plympton St Maurice and Plympton St Mary. It stands on an ancient trackway, the Ridgeway, that leads from Dartmoor, and it was a stannary town for the tin trade, made one in 1328. Domesday records it as a royal manor.

A Norman motte and bailey castle was held by the Redvers family, later earls of Devon, and was besieged in 1136 and again in 1224, when the Sheriff of Devon took 15 days to end Fawkes de Breaute's rebellion. Royalists held it in the Civil War, with Prince Maurice's headquarters here, until Parliament took it in 1644. The castle green later held fairs, and the Lamb Feast has run since 1968. Plympton Priory, an Augustinian house founded early in the 12th century, became one of the richest in Devon.

St Maurice church has Saxon roots, a cross of about 1380 found built into the Guildhall in 1861, and a monument to Sir Joshua Reynolds, unveiled in 1904. Reynolds was born in Plympton on 16 July 1723, where his father was master of the grammar school, founded in 1658. Old sources disagree on some priory dates, so none are given beyond that.