Where the novel is set
Chapters 1-8
Plymouth.
Chapters 9-12
River Tamar & Rame Head.
Chapters 13-20
Area of Antony and St. Germans along the estuary of the river Lyner and the main road from Torpoint to Liskeard.
Chapters 21-23
Portugal and Spain.
Chapter 24
Spain, Plymouth & Lyner.
The Geography of Harry Revel
The geography of the novel from Chapter I to the beginning of Chapter XXI is that of Plymouth Dock, now Devonport, the Rame peninsula and the estuary of the River Lyner, centred on the rural parish of Antony. It is an area dominated by the River Tamar and the River Lyner, and by the Western Atlantic. Plymouth was, and still is, a naval and merchant shipping port. It inevitably looks across to Brittany, hence the name Breton Side overlooking Sutton Harbour, and south to Iberia and the Mediterranean.
At the time of the novel, the Napoleonic War dominated life, especially of seafaring communities along the south coast. Miss Amelia Plinlimmon nightly expects to be woken up by the tramp of French soldiers outside her window, while further west Jonathan Couch, Q's grandfather, was helping to work a cannon for the East and West Looe Voluntary Artillery, under whose nose Onesimus Pengelly would sail the Glad Tidings smuggling ketch in Chapter X. Sir William Pengelly of Looe, who came from a seafaring family, would in his later years befriend Q.
As Napoleon's army of invasion was marched from Boulogne in August 1805, the wedding of the Rev Scougall, founder of the Genevan Foundling Hospital of Plymouth Dock, can probably be dated to July 1805. Amelia Plinlimmon, matron of the establishment, would have been aware of the disappearance of Major Solomon Hymen of the Troy Gallants from the house of Mr and Mrs Basket, situated near the Citadel, in May 1804. Hymen was, in fact empressed aboard the Vesuvius, where he meets Ben Jope and Bill Adams. The burial of Bill Adams by Ben Jope in the Plymouth Dock cemetery features in Chapter VIII of Harry Revel.
Plymouth Dock, where the Genevan Foundling Hospital is situated, is not the Devonport district of Plymouth as it is today, but a separate locality. The novel gives the Hospital as overlooking a road to a canal-like dock, protected by a fort, while behind is a barracks for soldiers. This could be anywhere between Western Mill Lake and Mount Wise, behind which there is still a barracks. The dragoons from Plymouth, who play a part in a number of Q's stories, from The Mayor of Troy to The Haunted Dragoon must have been barracked in the area. They also appear in Harry Revel.
The Cottage of Mr and Mrs Trapp
At the age of ten Harry Revel is apprenticed to the chimney sweep Sydney Trapp, whose cottage lay at the foot of the Royal Citadel, on the Barbican side, presumably at the top of Lambhay Hill. In his leisure moments Harry revel swims in Sutton Pool, now Sutton Harbour, whose waters are far from clean. In fact, they must have contained the local sewage. This present writer can remember the sewage from his grandparents' house at Wilcove, across the River Tamar from Devonport, being thrown over the back wall each high tide. Flush toilets did not arrive until the late 1950s.
Mr Tucker's Bun Shop
In Chapter IV, Amelia Plinlimmon and Harry Revel meet at MrTucker's Bun Shop in Bedford Street. This is not the present Bedford Street. Chapter IV has the Royal Marine Band playing from St. Andrew's Church to George Street and Bedford Street. There is no Bedford Street adjacent today, probably having been destroyed in the bombing of 1941 – visible by Q at Fowey from reflections on the clouds. The locality containing the locations mentioned – Tucker's Bun Shop, the Hoe, the bull-pit and the Citadel – can all be ascribed to the area known today as the West Hoe.
The House of Isaac Rodriguez (presumably also Marine Stores)
On June 18, 1811, Isaac Rodriguez of Marine Stores, on the corner of the Barbican and Southside Street, arrives at the Trapps' cottage, requesting the services of a sweep. Mr Trapp is at Cremyll, having crossed the Tamar by ferry from Admiral's Hard at Stonehouse Pool to Cremyll quay, to prepare his boat for the fishing season. This is probably the ferry used by Rodriguez on his journey along the coast buying up guineas at 24s 6d (£1.225 in modern currency) for sale to the Bank of England, where gold reserves in 1811 were low. (Standard value of a guinea = 21 shillings or £1.05). The Looe Hill, where he was seen by Whitmore and one of the venturers, is almost certainly West Looe Hill. (See: 'The Mystery of Joseph Lacquedem', short story, for a similar incident.)
Most probably Rodriguez had his establishment between Southside Street and the New Street exit onto the Barbican. Three doors up from Marine Stores Sergeant George Letcher and Captain Archibald Plinlimmon lodge, the barracks being overfull of troopers for Portugal. A ships-chandler lies between and a warehouse beyond the lodgings. The roofs tend to be flat with louvre windows. Presumably, Plinlimmon accessed the roof of his lodging when going to rob Rodriguez, and it is not clear why he did not exit the same way, but relied upon Revel to discover a louvre window in the warehouse further along.
John Whitmore appears to have entered the house of Rodriguez through the main door, hence it was open when Trapp and Revel arrived. He stayed at a hotel the night before, subsequently paying the bill with the stolen guineas. He used others to change the note for Jack Rogers at Lydia Belcher's.
The Barbican to Plymouth Dock
Harry Revel and Archibald Plinlimmon escape along the roofs to a warehouse and down to a lane below. This brings Revel into Treville Street, which is no more, where he is given a lift in a hackney-carriage proceeding from the Symond's boarding-house on the Barbican to the cemetery of Plymouth Dock, presumably the one off Paradise Road rather than the one off Ford Park Road to the east. The journey involves St Andrew's Cross and Old Town Street, an area largely reconstructed after the Blitz. From the cemetery the coach travels from Stoke into open countryside until it comes to a halt half a mile south of the Saltash ferry, now the Tamar bridge. Clambering through fields Harry Revel and Ben Jope finally arrive at a flat-bottomed ketch called Glad Tidings, moored on the bank of the River Tamar just below St. Budeaux Wharf.
The Journey of the Glad Tidings
In Chapter XI, the Glad Tidings leaves St. Budeaux on the evening tide, sailing down the River Tamar to The Narrows, with Cremyll on the Cornish and Devils Point on the Devon side, and into Plymouth Sound, with Maker Heights to the west and Staddon Heights to the east. As the boat rounds The Bridge the lights of Cawsand become visible, with the Eddystone light blinking far out to sea, beyond Penlee Point, the southern point of Cawsand Bay. At this point the Glad Tidings is approached by the water-guard and then by another craft containing soldiers, one of whom is Sergeant Letcher. This craft has little interest in the Glad Tidings but much in a possible landing of contraband in Cawsand Bay. As a precaution Harry Revel quits the Glad Tidings, swimming ashore near Picklecombe Point, the second craft landing nearby. The soldiers clamber across the stony beach and ascend the cliff. Revel lands beyond the point where the beach is of slate, below a heather down.
At what appears to be Cavehole Point he encounters the landsmen awaiting the smuggling boats because the landsmen escape through the hole at the sighting of a flare released by Jack Rogers. The opposite cliff enshrouded in night is Staddon Heights on the far side of Plymouth Sound.
From Rame Head to Antony
In Chapter XII, Revel encounters Jack Rogers who has a tilbury (a small carriage) awaiting him on the coast road, which carries them onto the main road, presumably the present B3247 from Cremyll ferry. This takes them into Antony parish. Passing Minden Cottage they arrive at the home of Lydia Belcher, where the venturers are gathered seeking news of the landing. This includes the curate, John Whitmore, the parson being Rev Doidge.
Revel's Journey from Antony to the troopships
When Revel leaves Minden Cottage to join the 52nd Regiment sailing from Plymouth, in Chapter XX, he travels by tilbury into Antony and then turns right onto the St John – Millbrook road, where a boat awaits him in Millbrook Creek, with the light of Plymouth Dock visible. The troopship Bute must have been anchored in the lower Hamoaze.