Mill Bay laundry was one of the largest in Plymouth. Sited nearby were the Alkali Soap & Soda Works, providing the cleaning materials, and the Railway, giving the company convenient transport of good to towns & cities throughout the West Country. In about 1780, before the laundry was established, a musket redoubt, or fort, was built here on top of a large hill. By the 1850s the hill and redoubt had been quarried away.
