Outland Road

In 1830 Robert Falcon Scott's paternal grandfather bought Outlands, a house that until just after the last war stood on the site now occupied by St Bartholomew's Church. Grandfather Scott had retired from the Navy in 1826 and had bought, that same year, the Hoegate Street Brewery with his brother.

At that time Outlands was well and truly outside the main developments of Plymouth and Devonport ... a mile away in fact - hence Milehouse, or Mile End as it was once known. Central Park existed, only as fields, and in formal terms was still 100 years away, but the Britannia was just about to be built and the road that now bears the name of the Scott residence was even then part of the main route from Devonport and Stoke to Tavistock. In the 1870s and 1880s, when young Robert Falcon Scott was growing up, this was still the family home.

Today Outland Road is not the only link with Scott in this neighbourhood, his Antartic companions Oates, Wilson, Bowers and Evans are also remembered in local street names as is Scott himself and his ship the Terra Nova.

EH 16 April 1994