Bilbury Arms

Time was when Treville Street ran off from the eastern side of Old Town Street, roughly where the Post Office is now, across the middle of what is now Bretonside Bus Station down to the King’s Head, a building which, along with its immediate neighbours to the east, are the lone survivors of that ancient thoroughfare. The King’s Head is thought to date from the seventeenth century and some of the other properties in the street were believed to be much older. Standing directly opposite the King’s Head on the corner of Vauxhall Street stood one of a handful of other pubs in the street the Bilbury Arms – there was also the Big Lamp, the Mail, the Spread Eagle, the Lamb and the Treville Street Spirit Vaults. The name came from the street at the side of the King’s Head – the oldest recorded Plymouth street name – Bilbury Street and by a bizarre coincidence one of the last licensees here was called Charles Cross, the same as the roundabout which almost overlaps the line of the original Bilbury Street. Before the war the building was in use as a butcher’s shop.

Licensees

1857 - Phoebe Hamble
1873 - John Furneaux
1888 - Mrs Elizabeth Furneaux
1895 - Charles Cross
1901 - Samuel Adams