Drake is an election
ward within
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west.
Plymouth ...
,
Devon
Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...
, England. One of the main roads from the city to
Tavistock and
Dartmoor runs through the ward. In the past it played an important role in the supply of water to Plymouth, and it was the location of both a fatal bomb explosion and a large unexploded bomb during the
Plymouth Blitz
The Plymouth Blitz was a series of bombing raids carried out by the Nazi German ''Luftwaffe'' on the English city of Plymouth in the Second World War. The bombings launched on numerous British cities were known as the Blitz.
The royal doc ...
. The
University of Plymouth has its main campus in this ward and the large student population has led to part of it being designated as one of the four areas subject to
Designated Public Places Orders in the city. It is also the location of the city's
main railway station
Central stations or central railway stations emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as railway stations that had initially been built on the edge of city centres were enveloped by urban expansion and became an integral part of the ...
,
museum
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...
and public library.
History
In 1591,
Drake's Leat first supplied water to Plymouth. Its route came through what is now Drake ward, but was at the time outside the town walls. When
Sir Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake ( – 28 January 1596) was an English explorer, sea captain, privateer, slave trader, naval officer, and politician. Drake is best known for his circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition, from 1577 to 1580 (t ...
constructed the leat he ensured that he held the rights to build mills on it.
At least two of those mills were within this ward; the site of the higher one was converted to a reservoir in the late 19th century and is now known as Drake's Place Reservoirs.
In common with much of the city, many buildings in this ward were destroyed or damaged during the
Plymouth Blitz
The Plymouth Blitz was a series of bombing raids carried out by the Nazi German ''Luftwaffe'' on the English city of Plymouth in the Second World War. The bombings launched on numerous British cities were known as the Blitz.
The royal doc ...
of World War II. In one fatal incident, on the night of 22 April 1941, a bomb fell on the Portland Square
air-raid shelter
Air raid shelters are structures for the protection of non-combatants as well as combatants against enemy attacks from the air. They are similar to bunkers in many regards, although they are not designed to defend against ground attack (but many ...
killing over 70 civilians, including a mother and her six children.
Human remains were found in the tops of trees, as a result of the bomb blast. In 2006 part of the remains of the shelter were rediscovered on the university campus,
and an appeal was made to raise money for a public sculpture to honour those who lost their lives.
This is now the Portland Square memorial.
Another, non-fatal, incident occurred during a short sharp air raid on 14 June 1943. A 1,000 kg bomb came through the roof of the then main police headquarters in Greenbank Road, on the eastern edge of the ward. The bomb did not explode and came to rest on the first floor landing outside the court rooms and above the cells and the control room, both of which were occupied. There were also many police in the building at the time. The headquarters had to be evacuated for several days until this bomb and another that had landed in the adjoining building were made safe and removed.
After the Blitz, in 1943 a "Plan for Plymouth" was drawn up for redesigning the city. In that plan the part of Drake ward to the west of the Tavistock road was designated as the cultural precinct, and it was suggested that any extension of the Museum and Art Gallery should be there, as well as a new Technical College, centralized buildings of political and social organizations, youth organizations, a Health Centre, and headquarters and studios for the
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. This aspect of the Plan was only partially fulfilled.
Geography and transport
Drake ward is the smallest in area of the
20 wards in the city and is surrounded (clockwise from the north) by the wards of
Compton
Compton may refer to:
Places
Canada
* Compton (electoral district), a former Quebec federal electoral district
* Compton (provincial electoral district), a former Quebec provincial electoral district now part of Mégantic-Compton
* Compton, Que ...
,
Efford
Efford (anciently ''Eppeford, Elforde'', etc.) is an historic manor formerly in the parish of Eggbuckland, Devon, England. Today it has been absorbed by large, mostly post-World War II, eastern suburb of the city of Plymouth. It stands on high ...
and
Lipson
Lipson is a ward in the city of Plymouth, England. It is an area with mixed terraced housing, some subdivided into bedsits and flats and a public open-space called 'Freedom Fields', a Civil War battle site where the townsfolk of nearby Plymout ...
,
Sutton and Mount Gould
Sutton (''south settlement'' or ''south town'' in Old English) may refer to:
Places
United Kingdom
England
In alphabetical order by county:
* Sutton, Bedfordshire
* Sutton, Berkshire, a location
* Sutton-in-the-Isle, Ely, Cambridgeshire
* Sut ...
,
St Peter and the Waterfront
ST, St, or St. may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Stanza, in poetry
* Suicidal Tendencies, an American heavy metal/hardcore punk band
* Star Trek, a science-fiction media franchise
* Summa Theologica, a compendium of Catholic philosophy an ...
,
Stoke
Stoke is a common place name in the United Kingdom.
Stoke may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
The largest city called Stoke is Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. See below.
Berkshire
* Stoke Row, Berkshire
Bristol
* Stoke Bishop
* Stok ...
, and
Peverell
Peverell (anciently Weston Peverell) is a neighbourhood of Plymouth in the English county of Devon. The 2001 Census estimated the population as 6,455, increasing dramatically to 13,553 at the 2011 census.
History
The area was originally par ...
.
[
] Its northern border is in the suburb of
Mutley and it also forms the southern boundary of
Ford Park Cemetery and part of
Central Park
Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...
.
The ward is roughly bisected by the main road to the town of
Tavistock, the upper part called North Hill and the lower part, a short stretch of dual-carriageway, named Drake Circus after a former roundabout built in the early 20th century just beyond the ward's southern boundary. That site is now the location of
Drake Circus Shopping Centre
Drake Circus Shopping Centre is a covered shopping mall in the centre of Plymouth, England, which opened in October 2006.
The building was designed by London-based architects Chapman Taylor and built by Bovis Lend Lease. Situated behind the r ...
, opened in 2006.
The city's
main railway station
Central stations or central railway stations emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century as railway stations that had initially been built on the edge of city centres were enveloped by urban expansion and became an integral part of the ...
is at the western end of the ward.
Demography and governance
The ward is within the
Plymouth Sutton parliamentary constituency and has an
electorate
Electorate may refer to:
* The people who are eligible to vote in an election, especially their number e.g. the term ''size of (the) electorate''
* The dominion of a Prince-elector in the Holy Roman Empire until 1806
* An electoral district
An ...
(voting population) of 5,391.
At the
2001 census the population of the ward was 8,831, of which 3,695 (42%) were full-time students aged 18 or over.
The population of the ward had increased to 11,149 at the 2011 census. Over 43% of the accommodation was rented from private landlords or letting agencies.
The North Hill area of Drake ward is one of four areas of Plymouth that are subject to a
Designated Public Places Order which prohibits the consumption of alcohol in designated public places. In 2007 there were 13 licensed premises on North Hill.
Drake ward was in the news in 2001 when one of its councillors resigned from the
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
to defect to the
Liberal Democrats. This was especially notable as the councillor, Karen Gillard, was the national chair of
TORCHE, the Tory Campaign for Homosexual Equality.
Economy
The largest employer by far is the
University of Plymouth which has its main campus in the ward. The university educates over 30,000 students, employs 3,000 staff and has an annual income of around £160 million. The ward contains the
Plymouth railway station, which is an important economical structure for the economy of Plymouth. Drake is in close proximity to the city centre of
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to the west and south-west.
Plymouth ...
and the
Drake Circus Shopping Centre
Drake Circus Shopping Centre is a covered shopping mall in the centre of Plymouth, England, which opened in October 2006.
The building was designed by London-based architects Chapman Taylor and built by Bovis Lend Lease. Situated behind the r ...
.
Landmarks
![Plymouth Eye Infirmary](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Plymouth_Eye_Infirmary.jpg)
The university's most prominent building is the
Roland Levinsky Building
Roland (; frk, *Hrōþiland; lat-med, Hruodlandus or ''Rotholandus''; it, Orlando or ''Rolando''; died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the ...
, clad in copper and completed in 2007. On the opposite side of Drake Circus, the road, is
Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery
The Box is a museum, gallery and archive in Plymouth, Devon, England, opened in 2020 housing a collection of about 2 million items. The core of the building was previously Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery which closed in 2016. The building wa ...
and the adjoining Central Library, built in 1907 by Thornely and Rooke in Edwardian Baroque style.
Higher up North Hill are Sherwell United Reformed Church (1864) and St Matthias Church (1887). The former's spire and the latter's tower are both prominent elements on the city's skyline. Until 1990, Sherwell Church had an organ commissioned from
Henry Willis
Henry Willis (27 April 1821 – 11 February 1901), also known as "Father" Willis, was an English organ player and builder, who is regarded as the foremost organ builder of the Victorian era. His company Henry Willis & Sons remains in busin ...
in 1864; the organ is now in St Michael's Church,
Great Torrington. At the northern end of North Hill is the Plymouth Proprietary Library, notable for being the city's oldest surviving collection of books and papers, established in 1811.
Drake's Place Reservoirs, constructed in the 1820s, are in North Hill just above Sherwell Church. They were expanded in 1891 and a 200 ft colonnade with a terrace on top was added so that people could relax by the water. The pillars of the colonnade were originally from ''The Shambles'' (butchers' stalls outside St Andrew's church) and from 1791 were re-used in the market before being relocated here. In August 2010, a grant of £500,000 was awarded by the
National Lottery towards the preservation of the landmark.
Plymouth Royal Eye Infirmary, near the main railway station, was built in 1897 by Charles King and E. W. Lister. Unusually for an area that had a tradition of building in limestone, it was constructed in red brick with stone facings.
See also
*
List of wards in Plymouth
The city and unitary authority of Plymouth, Devon, England has 20 electoral wards. Of which seven are Labour, nine are Conservative and the remaining four are mixed. Each ward has three member representatives except Drake, Plympton Chaddlewood an ...
References
External links
{{commons category, Drake Circus
Area covered by the ward
Suburbs of Plymouth, Devon
Francis Drake