Exeter Street

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, on the completion of the Embankment, Exeter Street was the principal route out of Plymouth to the county's cathedral city.

Here we find the old First and Last pub which was then the first and last hostelry inside the Plymouth boundary, depending on which direction you were travelling in. Exeter itself is one of the county's older settlements and it takes its name from the river that Ptolomy recorded as Iska in 150 AD.

Later evolving into Exe this river name has the same root as Axe, Esk, Isch and Usk and means simply water. Originally known as Isca Dumnoniorum (of the Devon people), when the Romans came to occupy Exeter and build a wall around it the place became Exanceaster (894 AD). Ceaster or Chester in this sense coming from the Roman "castra" - meaning a city or walled town, one that was originally a Roman station. The transformation from Excester to Exeter came in the sixteenth century.