Mexican Cooking, Cookworthy and Cook

I had noticed this building before because it stands out from the crowd architecturally. But I hadn't noticed this detail before. Who is this in the bas relief plaque? How do early English porcelain, Mexican food, and the first mapping of the coast of New Zealand come together right here in Plymouth?

When I first spotted this building a few years back I had presumed it was a former fire station, just because it has that look, along with a large entry door that would have accommodated an early fire engine, but I never got around to researching it until now.

When I started researching it I immediately found conflicting information about the current building but little to no information about the building that once stood here before this one was built.

On this very spot there once stood a house, and that house belonged to William Cookworthy of Kingsbridge. Cookworthy was an early pioneer of the porcelain industry in England.

William Cookworthy (12 April 1705 – 17 October 1780) was an English Quaker minister, a successful pharmacist and an innovator in several fields of technology. He was the first person in Britain to discover how to make hard-paste porcelain, like that imported from China. He subsequently discovered china clay in Cornwall. In 1768 he founded a works at Plymouth for the production of Plymouth porcelain. Wikipedia

The round plaque above features James Cook and what I hadn't realised is that above the other window to the right of the large arch is a matching portrait of William Cookworthy. So why is James Cook memorialised on this building that was built a hundred years after his death.

Both men were contemporaries here in Plymouth and James Cook who explored the world on three historic voyages started all three here in Plymouth, and he dined right here in the house of William Cookworthy. Cookworthy's house was eventually demolished and replaced with this building. There may have been some artisan dwellings constructed here in between.

This is one of the most difficult research projects I have ever done and when I publish it, it may turn out to be the most definitive source of information all in one place, about this building and the site it is on. It was initially going to be under the banner of my "Quickies" series of posts, but having now spent several hours trying to make sense of snippets of information secreted all over the internet and its sources, it turns out to be anything but a "Quick" post. So I have re-titled it.

I ended up going down a rabbit hole of unattributed factoids that never came together into a unified whole until I eventually came across one article in the newspaper archive where all of the disparate claims came together.

Here is where I started, and there seemed to be some confusion about the original purpose of this current building which is now quite clearly a Mexican Restaurant, no confusion there.

My first result explained that it was built in the 1880's as artisan dwellings, don't believe everything that AI on Google tells you. That just didn't make sense to me. It looks like no Victorian artisan dwellings I have ever seen.

With further prompting, the same AI Google search came up with this. The building at 58 Notte Street, Plymouth was formerly the County Fire and Police Offices and is now converted into apartments. The original building, a large Victorian structure, was constructed around 1879 for the county police and fire services and was later used by the city council for administrative offices. It was designed by the architect Josiah Stansfield.

So that fitted with my original instinct. However, even after this came up the so called "deep dive" did not confirm any of that and I cannot find any reference to a Josiah Stansfield.

When I reworded the enquiry I got this, "There is no known historic police or fire station headquarters specifically located on Notte Street; rather, the central police and fire stations were located nearby on Catherine Street and later at Greenbank."

I can confirm that the police were also running the fire service until 1941 and I can confirm that there was a Plymouth Central Police and Fire Station in 1890 although its site is not confirmed, so was this it?

The main headquarters were based at the Guildhall until a purpose built headquarters was built at Greenbank. For once I can find out nothing definitive about this current building.

---

This was where I got to, with a big bold question mark. ?

I felt at this point that I would just have to publish what I had, after all this was a “Quickie”. An interruption meant that I had to leave my research for most of a day and come back to it. By that time I was like a dog with a bone and I just had to try harder. At this point I hadn’t tried archive maps so I gave that a go, starting back in the early 1800’s with no information until I got to the late 1940’s having now given up hope. This was when I found some thing big that led me down a new route.

This map undoubtedly showed this building as a ruin and in the late 1940’s this probably meant only one thing. It had been bombed. This part of Plymouth had been heavily bombed. All searches are wholly dependent on the search words you use and up until this point I had not entered the word bomb into any search, and the words police and fire had led me off course. What was this building’s original purpose?

Then I found this Historic England page with frustratingly no photograph but the key information Christian Mission Hall.

This was completely new and gave me some new search words, which brought up this sentence on another blog.

In the early 1880s Isaac Foot snr. bought the site and built a Christian Mission Hall (now a restaurant) here. Chris Robinson's Plymouth

I still had no evidence tying all of this together irrefutably, and no idea where Chris Robinson got this from, but I now also had a name Isaac Foot. Mr Foot turned out to be the gold lode I had hoped for when I started this post. Mr Foot is variously mentioned through his advertisements of between 1882 to 1891 as having business premises in Notte Street. He seems to have been both a builder and developer and undertaker. It was common for trades to cross over back then and the skills needed in building, such as carpentry would have served well in coffin making. It was also a time when there was re-development in this area of Plymouth where much of the housing stock was dilapidated, and slum clearance was well underway.

Mr Foot was working only yards away from this buildings site. I also found references to a Mr I Foot occurring in announcements about the Temperance movement and large events taking place in connection with Temperance Missions. This movement was trying to wean the populace who lived in these slums off alcohol.

Finally I found my golden nugget. An article that brought Mr Isaac Foot, a Christian Mission Hall, Notte Street, William Cookworthy and James Cook all into one complete story, published in The Western Morning News on the 1^st October 1883.

I can now make a claim that this Mexican Restaurant was originally built as a Mission Hall by the developer Mr Isaac Foot which opened on Saturday the 29^th September 1883. It was bombed out during the Second World War, leaving the frontage intact and at some point it was restored.

I have found one claim that Cookworthy’s original house was set back with gardens in front and it is possible that a set of artisan dwellings was erected in front of his house bordering the edge of the street, in the 1820’s. That would mean that these were probably what were removed when the Mission was built. I cannot confirm that part of the story.

However, for the previous building on the site there appears to be no doubt.

JAMES COOK

DISCOVERER AND NAVIGATOR 1728-1779

  CAPTAIN ROYAL NAVY AND LEADER OF THREE GREAT VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY WHICH CHARTERED UNKNOWN LAND

 IN THE SOUTH SEAS AND PACIFIC ON EACH VOYAGE HE SET OUT FROM PLYMOUTH.   HE DINED IN A HOUSE ON

  THIS SITE WITH COOKWORTHY BEFORE EMBARKING ON HIS FIRST VOYAGE IN 1768.

Cook’s expeditions were notable for their scientific rigor, including collecting flora and fauna samples, documenting indigenous cultures, and implementing practices that helped prevent scurvy among his crew. His skills in astronomy also significantly advanced maritime navigation.

There follows a large part of the fascinating article I found noting the opening of the Mission Hall and the speeches given which encompass the contemporary life of the area as well as the preceding history of the site. One speech is given by Alfred Balkwill. Balkwill actually had family connections with Cookworthy and Balkwill and Sons was the company that grew out of the Cookworthy pottery business. Alfred was born only just over fifty years after the death of Cookworthy so this was all recent family history to him.

Western Morning News - Monday 01 October 1883

CHRISTIAN MISSION HALL,

PLYMOUTH.

OPENING MEETING

The new building, which stands upon the site of what was known as the Mayoralty House in Notte-street, Plymouth, and which has been named the Christian Mission Hall, was opened on Saturday. It is a capacious, substantially-built hall, and has been erected by Mr. Isaac Foot, builder, Notte street, entirely at his own charge. Mr. Foot now looks to the public only for the working expenses of the building, and judging by the way in which his work was appreciated on Saturday he will not look in vain. The hall is, as its title denotes, intended to be undenominational, and the opening gatherings were of that character.

The proceedings commenced with a prayer meeting at eleven o'clock in the morning. Mr. Foot presided, and several hymns were sung and prayers offered. There was a good attendance. At eleven o'clock there was a meeting at which Gospel addresses were delivered. Mr. Reynolds Fox, in an excellent speech, alluded to the fact that that hall stood upon the site of the house of Cookworthy, the Plymouth potter. Mr. J. N. Bennett, Miss Spearman, the Rev. Professor Anthony, and Mr. Foot also addressed the meeting. Messrs, Lonsdale and Withecombe offered prayer. In the afternoon there was a tea.

In the evening there was a public meeting which was well attended........... Mr Foot then made some remarks. For a long time before he began that building he was impressed with the need of some such building in that neighbourhood. Many of them perhaps had no idea of the density of the population in that neighbourhood. In the back courts around them they had houses four storeys high, and the paper was right the other day when it said that building stood in the midst of the thickly packed poor. That was a place of worship built for those poor people. (Applause.) It was not intended for the people who already go to a place of worship. It was not intended to attract the people who liked to hear some new thing, and sit in some new place; but it was intended for those who could not afford to pay seat rent or give much to collections. And he believed that if they had faith in God all that was necessary would be forthcoming. (Applause.)

He said he had an impression that some such building was needed in that neighbourhood, he looked round and thought he could not find a better spot than that; and many a time he came down in the dark, and with no eye upon him but God's, just lifted up his heart to God that He would give them that spot for a mission-hall. Very soon after that the place was up for sale. He then mentioned his intention to several people, and they all seemed to accord with it. He went to the sale, bid for the property, and got it. It was a great secret what he wanted it for, but someone in the saleroom said it was for a chapel. Then he procured plans from Mr. Snell, and somewhere about Christmas he began to build. Since then the work had occupied most of his thoughts, and be had been able to do hardly anything else. There was scarcely a piece of wood in it that had not passed through his hands. (Applause.)

Later on Mr Foot added that he had received every encouragement from the ministers of the town. He had asked them to take a service there on Sunday afternoon in turn.

Mr. BALKWILL, in the course of an address, said they had, perhaps, all heard of the good man who 150 years ago lived in the house that stood on that spot. William Cookworthy used there to gather around him the captains and the men of science and literature who lived in or came to the port; and in his life they read how that those who gathered round his table were of so many different languages that they had to find a common language, and therefore, they spoke in Latin. Now they had gathered on that same spot men of different religious persuasions, and different religious experience and modes of thought as different, perhaps, as those men of different lands who used to gather round Cookworthy's table, and yet they had all found a common language-the language of the heart. (Applause.)

William Cookworthy was a fine old man. One day he met with a traveller from China and heard from him the story of the material used in porcelain making in that land, and he made up his mind that he would not rest until be had found some similar material to it in this country ; and travelling as he would do in connection with his business over Cornwall he met with that china clay which formed now one of the great staple industries of that county, and had given to England the manufacture of porcelain. He (Mr. Balkwill) was visiting a little while ago in Stoke-upon-Trent and he went over those grand works at Etruria founded by Joseph Wedgewood, who was the father of the industry of the Pottery district; and as he was going over the works it was a pleasant thing to tell the gentleman who shewed him them that he came from Plymouth where china was first made in England, and that he himself represented the firm of the first discoverer of that china making. (Applause.)