It is not surprising to find that one of the oldest properties in Plymstock is situated on one of the oldest thoroughfares in the area. As Dr JC Bellamy described it in his manuscript History of Plymstock in the middle of the nineteenth century; “Horn: The house situated on the estate of Upper Horn or Down’s Horn, was anciently of considerable size and shaped like the capital E.” This was the favoured design of many great houses built in the sixteenth century and a substantial part of the old Horn house still stands today, its arched doorways and ancient stonework instantly evoking a distant era. Bellamy noted that the property had had the “honour of housing some respectable persons”, a tradition that sustains into the modern age. He also stated, somewhat curiously, that “Horne as a name for residences gives names thence, alas to families.”
Certainly it has given name to more than just the lane, as the more modern Horn Lane Flats testify.
