Treville Street

In the years that followed the war a number of once familiar street names disappeared from Plymouth maps, among them a name that reaches far back into Plymouth’s back pages.

Richard Trevill, was, according to Victorian historian Jonathan Couch, who published extracts from his ledger, an “eminent merchant in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, from whom and the members of his house a street in Plymouth derived its name.” Couch was quoted in Worth’s (1890) History of Plymouth and the account went on to say that “Trevil was a very spirited man.

He erected fish cellars at Kingsand and Cawsand and exported “fumados”, now called “fairmaids”, to Bordeaux, Rochelle, Spain and Naples, between 1597 and 1600.” Fumados are smoked pilchards and at the time the trade was a worth a lot of money in the area and “during the reign of Elizabeth and James I pilchards formed a chief branch of the town exports” and then a number of families founded their fortunes on the trade. Treville Street itself incidentally ran east from Old Town Street, straight across from East Street.

EH 20 March 2001