Bilbury Street

One of the city's oldest named streets is Bilbury Street, however the stretch that is currently known by that name, although it runs off the original, does not follow the same course.

The original Bilbury Street is now part of Bretonside and it includes the stretch where the King's Head pub stands. First recorded as “Billabiri” Street in 1342, it ran from the northernmost tip of Sutton Harbour around towards St Andrew's Church, its eastern end just twenty yards or so beyond the King's Head. Crispin Gill has a theory that Bilbury is oldest name for the settlement that became Sutton (Southtowm) and then Plymouth. Billa according to this notion would have been the chief of the defended place - burgh - on the edge of the harbour.

The settlement could well date back to bronze age times with North Street being the original ridge road running out of Plymouth. Whitfeld's suggestion that Bilbury here indicates “an original locality for bilberries or whortleberries” appears to be a spurious one.

EH 3 June 1995