OLD DEVONPORT . UK
www.olddevonport.uk
 

©  Brian Moseley, Plymouth
Webpage created: April 20, 2017
Webpage updated: May 12, 2019

To go to the Home Page          To go to the A-Z Contents Page

ROADS AND STREETS IN OLD DEVONPORT

DOIDGE'S WELL or THE CRIBS'

Doidge's Well takes its name from a well that was on the land owned and farmed by a Mr Doidge.

When built upon, the area consisted of numerous alleys and courts such as Braggs' Alley, Francis Alley, Jenn's Court, and Trafalgar Court, and it became known as The Cribs.

Whitfeld described the area in his "Plymouth and Devonport in Times of War and Peace": 'The condition of "The Cribs" next arrested the attention of the authorities.  These warrens threatened to tumble around the ears of their occupants - persons so repellent that no citizen could enter without certainty of insult.  Bragg's Alley, an infamous spot, once  tenanted by Admirals whom Nelson was accustomed to visit, was not abandoned to corpulency and cracks, and the visitor wandered from court to alley, from alley to square, and from square to passage, until he despaired of escape from these "infernal regions" '.

In 1878 the alleys were all demolished between James Street and Dockwall Street and new properties erected in Corry Street, Duncan Street, Northbrook Street, and Willes Street.  Dockwall Street was given a "posher" name, too: Edinburgh Road.

For a list of the Occupants of Doidge's Well in 1852 CLICK HERE.