Beacon Park

Robert Spry’s leat map of 1584 shows three fire beacons, one on the Hoe, one at Roborough and one at Pennycross. In the days before satellite communications, and long before the electric telegraph, fire beacons were the principal means of communicating urgent messages, day or night.

And of course the most important message to be communicated was “danger”, danger of foreign attack or imminent invasion. In those distant days there was little development around the Pennycross beacon but as housing started to appear so the beacon was to be incorporated in the name of the area.

Beaconsfield, later absorbed by St Boniface School and now long gone, was one of the first major properties here and Plymouth Albion first started playing at Bladderly near the present Beacon Park ground in 1887 (the move to Beacon Park itself came in 1919). As well as Beacon Park and Beacon Park Road of course there is Beacon Down Road and Beaconsfield Road.

EH 4 May 1996