Exeter Inn (Millbay)

Part of a block built in the middle of the nineteenth century at the entrance to the newly fashioned Great Western Docks at Millbay, the Exeter Inn stood in that section of Millbay Road that ran between the erstwhile Washington Place and Victoria Road – the site is substantially covered today by the roundabout at the entrance to Millbay Docks, off Millbay Road and at the end of Martin Street.

It would appear from the records that its life as a pub was relatively short-lived, even though the premises remained in the hands of one family for many years. The first member of that family to run the Exeter was a man with a wonderfully Dickensian name, Archelaus Toop, and after running it just as a pub, his successor, W Toop, ran it as a beerhouse and dinning rooms, and by the time Andrew Toop had taken it on in the mid 1860s it was operating just as dining rooms – a role it still had when Sydney Hoskins took it on in the mid 1880s.

Licensees

1852 - Archelaus Toop