Belvedere, Plymouth

Lying on the seaward side of Plymouth Hoe and originally known as the Public Shelter, the Belvedere is more commonly referred to as the 'Wedding Cake'. The nick is due to the layered structure of the building, with an open colonnaded front and a pompous staircase.

As for the actual name, Belvedere, it derives from the two Italian words: 'bel' which means 'beautiful' and 'vedere' meaning 'to see/view'. Indeed, this fine terraced summer house, which once served as the ornate entrance to Promenade Pier (one of the Hoe’s greatest attractions), affords visitors a rather breathtaking view of Plymouth’s beautiful coastline.

The Wedding Cake has three levels and under its steps you can actually see the remains of the old Plymouth Promenade Pier, where it once met the land. The Belvedere was constructed in 1891 and tradition says that the pillars of its two upper tiers are reused 17th-century granite Tuscan columns taken from the old Market.

Throughout the 1800s, regular political meetings were held right below the Belvedere, in what used to be the so-called the Bull Ring. In the early 1900s, people would come here to meet friends and go out for a dance or a concert at the Pier. As well as tea dances and musical concerts, another event that drew crowds to the Wedding Cake and the surrounding area, was a swimming regatta in the Sound. Thousands of people would gather to watch the swimming, for which reason, some of the steps down on West Hoe are bum-sized, i.e. sized to one's bottom so as to fit as many people in as possible on the steps to watch the regatta.

Unfortunately, a lot of Plymouth was bombed in WWII, and the Pier caught fire during the Plymouth Blitz in 1941. What was left of it had to be demolished in the early 1950s, so the Wedding Cake is the only bit of it that lives on, much as the tales of the Pier's former splendour.