The earliest surviving documentary reference to the place is as "Plymentun" in Anglo-Saxon charter S380 dated to around 900 AD, and this name may be derived from the Old English adjective "plymen", meaning "growing with plum-trees".
The earliest surviving documentary reference to the place is as "Plymentun" in Anglo-Saxon charter S380 dated to around 900AD,. Therefore the name may be derived from either the Brythonic'pen-lyn-don', meaning'fort at the head of the creek' or the Old English adjective "plymen", meaning "growing with plum-trees".