PLYMPTON CASTLE. YM Bs 
been able to meet with any original document in which this tenure 
is referred to. 
In a survey taken in 1651 we find Plympton mentioned, and 
with many more particulars than in any other document, both as 
to the tenants and the income arising from the honour. It is, “ A 
survey of the Honors of Okehampton and Plympton, with the fee 
of Weeke St. Mary” (where was a castle the site of which now 
only is known), “lying and being in the counties of Devon and 
Cornwall, part of the possessions of Charles Stuarte, the late King, 
but now settled on Trustees for the use of the Common Wealth ; 
held as of the Manor of East Greenwich, in free and common 
socage by fealty only. Taken by Edward Hore, George Gentleman, 
Gabriel Taylor, and George Goodman, and by them returned the 
27th day of November, Anno Domini 1651.” 
The Honour of Plympton is thus described: ‘All that the 
Honour of Plympton, lying and being in the County of Devon, 
of which there is held one hundred and twenty knights’ fees, three 
parts whereof in eight parts equally divided belonged to the late 
King, unto whom there hath been heretofore paid for garrett money 
and suite to Court by the free tenants who hold of the said Honor 
yearly as a quit-rent per annum, £14 2s. Od. The reliefs arising 
and growing due within this Honour of Plympton did amount 
unto communibus annis fifteen pounds, out of which there being 
deducted five parts in eight, there remained to be paid to the late 
King p’ ann. £v. xii* vj*” 
The yearly payment by the burgesses of Plympton reserved by 
the first charter, granted by Baldwin the seventh earl, continued to 
be paid by the now-suspended corporation down to the year 1833, 
to the Earl of Morley, who had become, by purchases from various 
parties and at various times, the owner of the Castle and lord of 
the manor of Plympton. At that time however the finances of 
the borough had become so reduced that the corporation informed 
the earl that it had no power to keep up the antient payment, 
and as the legal representative of the lords of Plympton was 
unable to enforce it, an acknowledgment which had been made 
uninterruptedly for a period of nearly six hundred years altogether 
ceased. Everything is gone now except the few remains of the 
old fortress; the tenures, the annual payments, the manorial 
customs, are all swept away. A semblance of a court is, I believe, 
still held ; but how different in its character from what those of 
