The rame peninsula, s.e. cornwall, uk
The Rame Peninsula is located in the South East of Cornwall, close to Plymouth in Devon. The peninsula is almost an island with 11 miles of sea coast and only a small 1 ½ mile land boundary. The peninsula is surrounded by the English Channel and Whitsand Bay to the south, Plymouth Sound and Cawsand Bay to the east, and the estuaries of the River Lynher and Tamar, the Hamoaze, Millbrook Lake and St John Lake to the north. The entire area of the peninsula is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
The human history of the Rame Peninsula goes back a long time. At Rame Head for instance are the remains of an Iron Age Cliff Castle. The narrow neck of the headland displays a ditch with an entrance way cut in its centre. The landmark focal point on the peninsula is the Chapel on Rame Head which was built in the 14th Century and is dedicated to St. Michael.
In the Domesday Book of 1086 the following Rame Peninsula settlements get a mention: Maker (Macretone), Tregantle (Argentel), Rame, Antony (Antone) and Sheviock (Savioch). Early maps of the Pensinsula show many place names still recognisable now, although sometimes spelled slightly differently.
1576 Christoper Saxton Map - note: East and West Antony
1610 John Speed Map - note : Shyuyoke is Sheviock
1646 Johannes Blaeu Map - note: Mount Edgecumbe was part of Devon
1767 Emanuel Bowden Raod Map - note: the main route into Cornwall was via the Stonehouse - Cremyll Ferry.
1831 John Davies map - note: Torpoint is still too small to get a mention
1868 Fortification map
1903 Ordnance Survey map
2011 Google view
This satellite image from 2011 shows that the rural character of the area has hardly changed over the years although there has been a shift from fishing towards tourism. Of interest to note is as well that the largest town on the peninusla - Torpoint (population approx 9.000) - was pretty much non-existent until 1800 and all the other 'settlements' have retained their rural character.
This snippet of a book from 1814 gives a interesting brief historical description of part of the peninsula:
'MAKER, near Plymouth-dock, in the deanery and in the south division of the hundred of East, lies partly in Devonshire and partly in Cornwall. The church is in Devonshire. The village or rather town of Inceworth, in this parish, is in the county of Cornwall. A market at Inceworth on Tuesdays, and a fair for three days at Michaelmas, were granted, in 1319, to Richard Champernown. The market has been long disused, but a cattle-fair is still held at Milbrook, within the manor of Inceworth, on the 29th of September; another cattle-fair has lately been established on the first of May.
The manor of Inceworth, which had been at a very early period in the Valetorts, came to the Champernowns as a marriage-portion with Joan, natural daughter of Richard, King of the Romans, by Joan Valetort, a coheiress of that family: the Champernowns continued to possess this manor in the reign of Henry VI.: it has been a considerable time in the Trefusis family, and is now the property of the Right Honourable Lord Clinton. There was formerly a chapel at Inceworth. The ancient mansion of the Champernowns was remaining in Carew's time.
Milbrook, which Leland calls "a riche fischar town," is partly in Devonshire and partly in Cornwall. Hals says, that Milbrook formerly sent members to parliament, and that it lost that privilege in the reign of Henry VIII., because it could not afford to pay its burgesses their wages of 4s. a day during their attendance in parliament: we find no other authority for this; there is no mention of Milbrook among the disused boroughs in Willis's Notitia Parliamentaria. Milbrook was garrisoned for King Charles I. in 1643.
Mount-Edgcumbe, the fine seat of the Earl of Mount-Edgcumbe, which came to his ancestors by a match with the heiress of Durnford, in or about the reign of Henry VIII., is in this parish, but in the county of Devon: part of the demesne is in Cornwall.
From: 'Parishes: Maker - Merther', Magna Britannia: volume 3: Cornwall (1814)