Pier Hotel

The Pier Hotel predated Plymouth Pier by over 30 years and that’s because it was named after the pier at Millbay that was built by Thomas Gill in the early 1840s and taken over by the Great Western Dock Company soon afterwards. The Pier could accommodate large ships and in 1845 Brunel’s SS Great Britain pulled alongside on her maiden voyage.

The Pier Hotel stood at the landward end of the pier just across from the octagonal Custom House (which still stands today and currently houses the Plymouth Lifeboat kit and crew).
It’s not clear how long the Pier Hotel remained open but it appears to have closed sometime after the opening of the more imposing Duke of Cornwall Hotel and the Albion Hotel (now part of the Continental) in the 1860s.

Licensees

1852 - Crispin Watmough
1862 - John Ackrell
1877 - J Phillips