Pomphlett

The first written reference we have for Pomphlett or Ponnaflute appears in 1330. The early spelling of the name suggests that it may derive from an old English personal name Puna or Punna, coupled with ‘fleot’, again an old English word, meaning ‘a place where water flows; a creek, inlet, run of water’.

Thus we have Pomfleet as it’s called in Bellamy’s hand-written History of Plymstock (1843?). Bellamy however preferred to interpret the Pom as coming from Pilim, that is the ‘rolling river adjacent’. Making Pomphlett the ‘creek of the Plym’, an attractive enough idea but unlikely. Certainly though it’s easy enough to see how a double ‘e’ -’t’ when hand-written can become an ‘e’ double ‘t’.

Incidentally in London ‘The Fleet’ originally described the run of water that flows into the Thames between Ludgate Hill and Fleet Street; today it is a covered sewer. Similarly at Pomphlett when the old mill at the head of this fleet was demolished in 1969 it was replaced by a sewage installation.