Two Plymouth place-names honour its near neighbour, Wembury Park Road – one of the many park roads in Peverell – and Wembury Road itself, which, not unsurprisingly leads from Plymstock (Elburton) to Wembury itself.
A delightfully set community with one of the most visited waterfronts in the area – notable for its coastal walks, rock pools, marine life and the once – inhabited Mewstone – Wembury is unusual in being one of only a handful of places in the country to have a church dedicated to St Werburgh. However this fact appears to have little or no significance for the etymologists who readily accept the second element of “Wembury” to be the standard “burgh” – some kind of fortification – and yet are divided and doubtful about the first element. “This place has been identified with Wicganbeorh of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle (AD 851) but in view of the (known) early spellings this is impossible,” say the authors of The Place Names of Devon. “The first element is difficult, it may be Waegun” a personal name. Professor Eilert Ekwall however in his tome reviewing the two earliest spellings – Weybiria and Wenbiria – concludes that “Wey in the first example is clearly a mistake for Wen” and suggests that it may derive from a Old English adjective Weoh, meaning “holy”.
