Apostille vs. Embassy legalisation for Botswana
The route starts with a question about the paper, not about you. A British office can vouch for a British signature because that is the only kind it is set up to know. Step one pace outside that circle — a degree from a foreign university, a birth record from another country's register — and the British mark has nothing to attach itself to. The country that made the paper owns that job.
Botswana's Hague status & what it means
Botswana joined the Hague Convention in 1968, and the United Kingdom sits inside the same treaty. That shared standing is why a single certificate does the work here. An apostille from the United Kingdom to Botswana is not one leg of a longer chain; it is the entire trip. Document legalisation for Botswana means this one step and nothing consular behind it.
The Plymouth → Botswana route step by step
For a civil record the safest opening move is a fresh certified copy from Plymouth Register Office at Derriford Park. It is drawn straight from the register and carries the same weight as the certificate at home, so the one you keep never has to go anywhere. Order that copy first and the rest of the route runs on a sheet you could afford to lose.
The copy then travels by post to the FCDO Legalisation Office at PO Box 6255, Milton Keynes MK10 1XX. One office covers the whole country and it works through the post, so living in Devon changes neither the route nor the wait. The finished certificate comes home joined to the sheet it was issued against.
Cost & timing for this route
The Legalisation Office charges £45 for each document by post, and £40 for each document on the next-day route open to registered businesses. Both figures land per paper rather than per envelope, which is worth knowing before you build a bundle. Time is harder to pin down, because it rides on the post at both ends and on how fast the register office prints your copy.
Destination-specific requirements
An apostille for Botswana is the correct and sufficient certificate, so there is no embassy stage behind it and no second fee to plan around. The body that asked you for the paper reads the mark and treats the British signature as proven. That is the plain benefit of two countries sharing one treaty: the far end does not have to form an opinion of its own about a signature it has never seen.