OLD PLYMOUTH . UK
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ROADS AND STREETS IN OLD PLYMOUTH - A-Z INDEX

WHITE CROSS STREET

White Cross Street can be seen running northwards from Hawk Street,
on Benjamin Donn's "Plan of the Town and Citadel of Plymouth", 1765.

Set into the wall on the south side of Greenbank Road, near its junction with Alexandra Road, Tavistock Road and Mutley Plain, is an old milestone that indicates the way to the 'Great Tree'.  It's existence is recorded in a document dated December 1649 and another a century later, both held by the Plymouth and West Devon Record Office.  Nothing that has survived gives the location of this 'Great Tree' but it appears to be linked to another ancient edifice, the 'Whyte Cross', which was recorded by R N Worth in a document from 1493.  Perhaps the 'Great Tree' replaced the 'Whyte Cross' because the latter gave rise to a road name, 'Whyte Cross Strete', which is recorded on Donn's map of Plymouth in 1765.  By that time, as can be seen in the above illustration, it was known as the 'Old Tree' and had even given rise to a short highway of that name.

Although it became 'Old Penny Lane' in 1820s it reverted to its former title by the time of the first Ordnance Survey in the late 1850s.

From this junction, therefore, White Cross Street ran due north as far as the junction with Higher Street, on its eastern side, after which it became North Street.  In time it was amalgamated in to North Street.

For a list of the occupants of White Cross Street in 1852 CLICK HERE.