It was just a few years ago now, the developers were getting close to completing their new houses at Oreston and they canvassed local opinion on the question of a name for the thoroughfare – back came a suggestion, The Old Wharf. Simple, factual and somehow, comfortable; the old wharf in question was developed a very long time ago and was part of the local Bayly and Fox empire in the nineteenth century.
Robert Bayly had married the daughter of Captain Brabant, a local merchant who lived in the Island House on the Barbican, and later inherited his mercantile and shipping business. In 1780 he started a timber company at Coxside (the more contemporary name Bayly Bartlett will be familiar to many) and in time it expanded its activities into Hooe Lake.
Consequently, for many years, that bit of waterfront, like so many other stretches of waterfront in Plymouth and the surrounding area, was a working zone until pressure to stay within agreed city boundaries and a simultaneous increase in demand for properties overlooking the water led the planners to allow domestic development here.
