Settlement in the area goes back to Roman times and a house made of stone was believed to have stood near to Stonehouse Creek.

Union Street, originally built across marshland, was for almost a century the centre of the city's night life with about a hundred pubs, a music hall and many other attractions.

[16] Stonehouse has 29.1% of the working age population claiming benefits and has the highest death rate for Cancer, CHD, COPD and Stroke in Plymouth.

[17] Between 1993 and 1998 the part of Stonehouse to the west of Durnford Street (including the Royal William Victualling Yard) was designated as one of the three areas of the city under control of Plymouth Development Corporation.

[18] However, Royal William Yard, also a walled site, welcomes the public freely (apart from car parking charges) to its increasing number of food outlets, and has part of the South West Coast Path running through it, using a staircase specially constructed in 2013.

[20] On Stonehouse Creek, a branch of the Tamar, off the estuary known as the Hamoaze are the modern shipbuilding sheds occupied by the luxury motor-yacht firm Princess Yachts who employ hundreds of local tradesmen to construct and fit out expensive vessels.

[1] The creek now ends at Stonehouse Bridge (for many years a toll bridge) and to the north east the wide river bed which led up past Millbridge to Pennycomequick and beyond to the bottom of Ford Park Cemetery, was reclaimed and infilled in 1973[21] to provide the playing fields of Victoria Park and rugby pitches for Devonport High School for Boys.

[23] There is a regular passenger ferry from the tidal landing Admiral's Hard to Cremyll in Cornwall which is used by visitors to the Mount Edgcumbe Country Park, and commuters to Plymouth.