Photo: painma, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
The largest provincial producing theatre in the UK and one of the best attended. They have produced and co-produced West End plays in London and on Broadway, New York, as well as in Plymouth. It also plays host to the occasional Royal Shakespeare Company production and has seen Shakespeare productions from acclaimed Japanese director Yukio Ninagawa.
Theatre Royal, Plymouth, is a theatre venue in Plymouth, Devon. It consists of a 1,300-seat main auditorium, The Lyric, which regularly hosts large-scale musicals, opera and ballet; a 200-seat studio, The Drum; and a 50-seat studio, The Lab. On a separate site, Theatre Royal Plymouth also has a production and learning centre, TR2, featuring rehearsal studios and workshops for the production of set and costumes.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
Focused on Royal Parade and Armada Way, has been much maligned by locals and the media. It is, however, worth stopping to have a look around you when you're in town. As the most complete example of a post-war reconstruction in the UK, this is a historically and architecturally significant district. It was planned by none other than Patrick Abercrombie, who also redesigned Hong Kong, and some of the buildings boast Thomas Tait as their architect. With a modern, almost American look, it was, in the words of Professor Jeremy Gould, 'an egalitarian grid, spacious, airy, uncomplicated, accessible and gapingly open to all... the architecture of the future: clean, bright, democratic and, most of all, optimistic.' Some of the best examples of the 1950s style are found along the main axis of Royal Parade and Armada Way, including the Royal Bank of Scotland building, the Pearl Assurance House and the former Co-Op Building at Derry's Cross.
A postwar sandstone brick church, opened in 1962. Significant as the last work of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, also responsible for Waterloo Bridge, Battersea Power Station, Liverpool Cathedral and even the red telephone box. He continued to work on the plans for the church even when hospitalised for lung cancer, and did so until his death. Today the church is well attended by young students and is worth taking note of on your way down to the Hoe.
Plymouth's synagogue is the oldest remaining Ashkenazi house of worship in an English-speaking country. Contains the only surviving 'full-blooded' Baroque Ark in the UK, impressive at two storeys high. The synagogue also has some beautiful stained-glass windows.
The centre of Anglicanism in a city which only possesses a Roman Catholic cathedral, this 14th-century church is an icon of the Plymouth Blitz. Amid the smoke and ruins of the destroyed city centre, a headmistress nailed a simple wooden sign over the door of the bombed shell of the church; 'Resurgam'(I will rise again). This famous gesture is often taken as a symbol of Plymouth's wartime spirit. This is not the Minster's only claim to fame; it has welcomed Catherine of Aragon, Sir Francis Drake, John Hawkins and Captain Bligh of The Bounty.
The oldest surviving house in Plymouth's centre, built in 1490 by a local merchant. Partially taken up by Tanners restaurant.
A historic building tucked away down one of the city's oldest streets: the Merchant's House is Plymouth’s finest surviving example of a 16th/17th-century residence. During the 17th century it was home to three Plymouth mayors including privateer William Parker, a friend of Sir Francis Drake.