Plymouth Hoe

Plymouth Hoe, referred to locally as the Hoe, is a large south facing open public space in the English coastal city of Plymouth. The Hoe is adjacent to and above the low limestone cliffs that form the seafront and it commands views of Plymouth Sound, Drake's Island, and across the Hamoaze to Mount Edgcumbe in Cornwall. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon word Hoe, a sloping ridge shaped like an inverted foot and heel.

John Lucas, sergeant, had 8d. for cutting Gogmagog.

Until the early 17th century large outline images of the giants Gog and Magog (or Goemagot and Corineus) had for a long time been cut into the turf of the Hoe exposing the white limestone beneath. These figures were periodically re-cut and cleaned. No trace of them remains today, but this likely commemorates the Cornish foundation myth, being the point, Lam Goemagot – the Giant's Leap - from which the Giant was cast into the sea by the hero Corin.

Plymouth Hoe is perhaps best known for the probably apocryphal story that Sir Francis Drake played his famous game of bowls here in 1588 while waiting for the tide to change before sailing out with the English fleet to engage with the Spanish Armada. The British Library holds a 1591 Spry map of Plimmouth from this era.

A Tudor fortress guarded the neck of water between the eastern Hoe and Mount Batten and some sheer granite and limestone cannon points remain, however in the late 1660s, following The Restoration, a massive star-shaped stone fortress known as the Royal Citadel, was constructed to replace it. Its purpose was to protect the port and probably also to intimidate the townsfolk who had leaned towards Parliament during the Civil War. It remains occupied by the military.

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