Coypool Road

Across Longbridge, going towards Plympton and the first major turning right is Coypool Road. It runs alongside that “private” stretch of the Plym Valley Railway and leads into the former depot of the Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers (REME). The 11-12 acre site was originally established, in 1940, as the Royal Army Ordnance Corps Depot - the change came when REME was formed in 1942. The whole operation was an offshoot of the Gunwharf at Devonport and as the corps ordnance stores it meant that everything the Army required was kept here - except food. Blacksmiths, tinsmiths, gunfitters, chippies, textile repairers and motor transport engineers had their workshops here. 1,500-2,000 civilians were employed there at one time, although by the time the Marines took it on in 1977 it had been scaled down dramatically. The Marines were here almost twenty years and more recently it has been acquired by the boatbuilding firm Marine Projects.

And the name itself - well that, would appear to come quite simply from the fact that it served as the Company - abbreviated to Coy - Vehicle Pool. However the name predates the Army’s arrival and appears in 1850 as the Coypool, and it refers to when the Earl of Morley used to float decoy ducks here when out on a shoot, hence Decoy Pool or Coypool as it became.

EH 24 January 1998