Just up from Forder Valley Road and west of Leigham Woods is a relatively modern development with many of the street names echoing the names of towns and village around the county – among them Bigbury Walk.
A popular area with many Plymothians, Bigbury Beach and Burgh Island are particularly picturesque and have appeared in many films over the years. Burgh Island appears on seventeenth century documents as the Boro’ Island, but earlier we find reference to the ancient chapel that once stood on the island’s summit as being the ‘chapel of St Michael de la Burgh’ the burgh, or beorg, here being an even more ancient name for a hill.
Bigbury itself was recorded as Bichiberia in the Domesday Survey and is thought to be a corruption of this area having belonged to someone called Bicca or Bica. The change from Bic or Byk to Bygge and hence Bigbury appears to have occurred in middle of the fifteenth century.
