10 Hidden Gems Even Locals Miss

Everyone does the Hoe, the Barbican and the aquarium - and rightly so. But Plymouth rewards the curious. These ten spots are the ones locals show visiting friends when they want to look impressive.

1. The Elizabethan Gardens, New Street

Hidden behind an easy-to-miss doorway among the Barbican's merchant houses, this tiny walled garden is a knot of box hedges, quiet benches and 400 years of calm. Most people walk straight past the entrance - which is precisely why you shouldn't.

2. Devil's Point at Golden Hour

The Hoe gets the crowds; Devil's Point gets the drama. This headland park at Stonehouse looks straight down the Sound to the breakwater and across to Mount Edgcumbe, with warships sliding past almost close enough to touch. Locals swim off the beach here year-round.

3. Prysten House

Plymouth's oldest surviving building (1498) hides in plain sight behind St Andrew's Church - a three-storey Tudor courtyard house most shoppers pass daily without knowing it exists.

4. The Merchant's House Garden Passageways

The alleys and opes threading between the Barbican's streets are a medieval street plan in miniature. Duck down any of them and you'll surface somewhere unexpected - usually near a pub.

5. Radford Castle & Hooe Lake

A miniature folly castle on a causeway across a tidal lake, ten minutes from the city centre in Hooe. At low tide, the lake reveals the skeletons of abandoned boats.

6. The Beatles' Balcony

In 1963 the Fab Four posed on the Hoe's Colonnade balcony. Stand in the same spot - almost nobody knows it's there, just west of Smeaton's Tower.

7. Stonehouse Creek's Secret Green

Once a tidal creek, now a hidden valley of playing fields and mature trees between Stonehouse and Millbridge - the most peaceful walk within a mile of the centre.

8. The Minerva Inn's Press Gang Tunnel

Plymouth's oldest pub (1540s) has a snug where press gangs once recruited the unwary, and stories of a tunnel to the waterfront. Order a pint and ask.

9. Jennycliff at Sunset

Across the Sound on the eastern shore, this clifftop meadow serves the definitive view back over the whole city as the sun drops behind Cornwall. Bring fish and chips.

10. The Door in Royal William Yard's Wall

At the Yard's far end, a gate in the perimeter wall opens onto a hidden cove and the coast path to Devil's Point. Half the Yard's visitors never find it.