Deller's Cafe, Bedford Street

"Emily Trefusis and Charles Enderby were seated at a small table in Deller's Cafe in Exeter. It was half past three and at that hour there was comparative peace and quiet. A few people were having a quiet cup of tea, but the restaurant on the whole was deserted". The author is Agatha Christie and the book is 'The Sittaford Mystery' from chapter 25 entitled 'At Deller's Cafe'. Christie was a regular visitor to Exeter and the eponymous restaurant from chapter 25 was to become one of Exeter's most important 20th century buildings and one of its most popular.

Deller's was established in 1844 by the grocer Edwin Deller at Paignton, a small coastal town about 20 miles from the city, but the first Deller's cafe in Exeter didn't open until 1905. The building it originally occupied in the city was on the corner of St Martin's Lane and the Cathedral Yard, in the beautiful 18th century property that had been the first premises of the Exeter Bank (now the Michael Caines restaurant right). But within 10 years the firm was looking to expand into larger premises and a site just off the High Street had recently become available.

In 1912 the sprawling 17th century Half Moon inn had been demolished. The inn had occupied a large area on the corner of the High Street and Bedford Street, running all the way back to Catherine Street at the rear. The entrance into Bedford Street from the High Street was narrower than it is today and, prior to 1942, it opened out dramatically into the Georgian townhouses of Bedford Circus. Following the demolition of the Half Moon inn only part of the site was reused when a mostly single-storey structure was erected for Lloyds Bank on the corner of the High Street and Bedford Street. Deller's in Exeter saw its chance both to expand and to move into the commercial centre of the city.

The new cafe on Bedford Street was designed by the Paignton firm of Hyams and Hobgen in 1916 and proved to be one of Exeter's most extraordinary buildings. (Hyams and Hobgen had already completed the still extant Torbay Picture House in Paignton left and the surviving cinema shares some stylistic similarities with Deller's Cafe.)

The architects decided to take advantage of the single-storey Lloyds Bank building in Exeter by constructing the cafe both on top of the bank as well as on the open area left unoccupied towards Catherine Street at the rear. It was therefore possible to provide a ground floor main entrance into the cafe from Bedford Street as well as using all of the space above the bank that overlooked the High Street.

The building was a remarkable mixture of architectural styles. The exterior walls were built of red brick studded with a riot of large and small mullioned windows with dressed stone surrounds that evoked a sort of Jacobean revival complimented by the Dutch gables on the Bedford Street elevation and the single pointed gable on the High Street elevation. At first floor level, rounding the corner from the High Street into Bedford Street, was an enormous 21-light window framed by stone pilasters and surmounted by a lead-roofed dome decorated with wreathes. The main entrance in Bedford Street consisted of a gigantic Baroque scrolled pediment beneath which lounged two sculpted female figures with columns on either side. The photograph above © Express & Echo shows Deller's Cafe after the interior was damaged by fire in 1942. The walls up to roof height remained intact. The entrance from Bedford Street is on the left. The two Ionic columns to the far right overlooked the High Street and were part of the Lloyds Bank building on top of which much of the cafe was located. It was all demolished by the city council after the war.

But it was the interior that made Deller's such a renowned building. The main entrance led into a spectacular atrium that rose the full height of the building and which was lit from above through a glass roof (part of the atrium is shown in the postcard above and at the top of this post). Around the edges of the room were first and second floor balconies accessed from the ground floor via a wide oak staircase. Oak panelling clad the walls. Inset into the walls of the balconies were plaster reliefs of frolicking Rococo cherubs, each tiered gallery supported by columns whose capitals were decorated with instrument-playing female figures. Above the oak panelling ran a continuous sculpted frieze with diaphanous, robed figures interspersed with stylised trees, borrowing freely from both the pre-Raphaelites and the Art Nouveau movement, the frieze itself brightly painted in greens, reds, mauves and blues. The overall impression was one of sumptuous luxury and lavish ornamentation. From these galleries it was possible to see everything that happened in the cafe while a string quartet played from the floor below.

And there were other rooms, like the huge ballroom above with a sprung floor. The ballroom also had another coloured frieze and an ornate plasterwork ceiling divided into sections by intricately decorated ribs, and there was yet another large dining room with timber-framed panelling on the walls. The sculpted reliefs were by Arthur Glover, the paintwork was executed by James Williams and the plasterwork ceilings were created and installed by Jackson & Sons of London.

It was a remarkable building, not just unique in Exeter but possibly unique in the entire country. There was nothing else quite like it. In December 1916 Deller's in Bedford Street opened for business and between then and its demise in 1942 it gained a reputation as one of the finest cafes in England. As a building it featured in numerous architectural periodicals and journals throughout the 1920s and 1930s and had it survived into the 21st century it would've been one of the most notable early-20th century structures in the west of England on the strength of its interiors alone.

On 04 May 1942 Exeter was blitzed and the entire building was ignited from flaming debris as the High Street burned. By the following morning Deller's Cafe had been severely damaged by fire. As Peter Thomas states in his book 'Aspects of Exeter', "in spite of the roof and the floors having collapsed, there was enough left of this gabled brick building...to warrant preservation and rebuilding". It should be said that not all of the interior was destroyed. I've seen photos taken after the fire which prove that some significant portions of the interior decoration remained intact, including much of the ballroom with its plaster ceiling and coloured frieze. But, as with so many of Exeter's war-damaged structures, instead of reconstruction Deller's Cafe was "completely destroyed as a result of official policy" (Peter Thomas, 'Aspects of Exeter').

The city council swiftly authorised the total demolition of the remains. Bedford Street was widened and the original site of Deller's Cafe is now an open, pedestrianised area above. The loss of Deller's, a popular social meeting point, was a real blow to the citizens of Exeter. I've talked to several people who remember the pre-war city and they all cited Deller's as one of Exeter's most wonderful buildings and its presence is still missed even by those who never saw it.

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The Half Moon Inn, High Street

In the 18th century over 370 coaches left Exeter every week, destined for London, Bath and Bristol. For over two centuries, along with the New London Inn, the London Inn and the Mermaid, the Half Moon left was one of the principal coaching inns in the city. Coaching inns differed from taverns in as much as they supplied teams of horses for stagecoaches and mail coaches and often acted as points of departure in the way that modern railway stations do today.

The Half Moon at Exeter stood on the corner of the High Street and Bedford Street and dated from the 1680s, a direct consequence of the increased traffic between Exeter and other large cities across England. At the time of its demolition at least, it was huge; a rambling, sprawling establishment which covered the entire site, extending from its main entrance on the High Street all the way back to Catherine Street. The stables and the coachhouses were all located on the other side of Catherine Street in Egypt Lane, and following the demise of horse and carriage as a means of transport it became a very popular hotel.

The image right shows the location and extent of the Half Moon in 1905 overlaid onto a modern aerial view of the same area. The inn is highlighted in red. The site of the ancient New Inn is highlighted in purple. St Stephen's church is highlighted in yellow. The building labeled 'Savings Bank' marked the beginning of Bedford Circus and is shown to the far right in the photograph at the top of this post. The area was affected by bombing in World War Two and during the post-war rebuilding Bedford Street was realigned the west.

It's easier to write about the people who used the inn than it is to write about the building itself as so little architectural evidence survives. The Half Moon wasn't just a hostelry, it was also frequently used as an auction house and as a place for social gatherings. For example, in 1824 the governors and benefactors of Exeter's hospital "proceeded to the Half Moon Inn" to celebrate the hospital's foundation in 1741 and where "an elegant dinner was provided"; and in 1842 a "grand dinner" took place at the Half Moon with a guest list which included "Magistrates, Members of the Council, Gentry and respectable inhabitants of Exeter". These are two of many dozens of 19th century examples that were deemed worthy of mention in Trewman's 'Exeter Flying Post'.

In the 1850s the Half Moon was run by William Routley and later by Robert Pople, later to be thrice mayor of Exeter. In October 1868 Pople moved on to the New London Inn and the licence for the Half Moon was transferred to Thomas Gardner. Gardner, originally from London, had already taken out a lease on the Royal Subscription Rooms and was to remain at the Half Moon until the 1880s. Like both Routley and Pople before him, Thomas Gardner was a Freemason and a member of the city's St John the Baptist Lodge. Masonic dinners at the Half Moon were regular occurrences throughout the 1800s. In 1856 a "Grand Masonic meeting" took place at the inn, for which "the large Masonic room was adorned with laurels and other evergreens". Another report from 1872 recorded that "the brethren adjourned to the Half Moon Hotel, where a sumptuous banquet was served by Brother Gardner". In 1871 Gardner turned one of the rooms into a billiard room. This room was described at the time as being "lofty, the ceiling beautifully and richly moulded, and the sides are most elaborately adorned". This must've been one of the rooms which still contained late-17th century plasterwork decoration. One interesting historical event occurred at the Half Moon in August 1882 when Gilbert and Sullivan met in the coffee room of the Half Moon to discuss the finale of Act One of 'Iolanthe'.

Much less is known about the building itself. It was certainly established by the 1680s but it is impossible to say how much of the 17th century structure survived into the 20th century. James Cossins in his 1877 'Reminscences' stated that in 1827 the Half Moon "had a very different appearance". We can only guess as to what the building's original appearance was like before it received its 19th century makeover.

As shown in the image above left © Devon County Council, for most of the 19th century the street frontage was three-bays wide and spread over four floors with tiered oriel windows extending from first-floor level to a modillion cornice. The third-floor windows were crowned with triangular pediments. In the centre of the ground floor was an open passageway through which it was possible to access a central courtyard. This stucco facade was only dated to c1830 though. Presumably the late-17th century version was smaller with a gabled, timber-framed facade. I'm not aware of any illustrations showing the exterior of the inn prior to its modernisation. A building on the same site is shown on Caleb Hedgeland's early 19th century model which depicts the city as it appeared in 1769. This building, highlighted in red above right, stands on the corner of Bedford Street and the High Street but it would be unwise to assume that it's an accurate representation in miniature of the Half Moon itself.

One notable architectural feature of the Half Moon which has been documented though were several fine late-17th century plasterwork decorative ceilings and these survived up until the building's demolition in 1912. In terms of style they were similar to the great 'Apollo' ceiling at the New Inn, a few properties further down the High Street towards St Stephen's church. Although simpler in design, it's possible that the ceilings at the Half Moon were the work of Thomas Lane, the craftsman responsible for the ceiling at the New Inn in 1689. It's bizarre that Harbottle Reed could write retrospectively in 1931 that the Half Moon "did not appear to have much of interest".

The Half Moon inn was demolished in 1912 to make way for Lloyd's bank and the extraordinary neo-Baroque, quasi-Jacobean, Art Nouveau-inspired Deller's Cafe. No record was made of the building as it was being destroyed and so most of its structural history is now lost for ever. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum managed to salvage some of the plasterwork ceilings during the demolition and one of them can still be seen at the museum today above. It's ironic that, if the inn hadn't been demolished and the ceilings salvaged, then they would've been completely destroyed in the bombing of May 1942. During the post-war reconstruction the alignment of Bedford Street was significantly altered and the site of the Half Moon inn, and later Deller's Cafe, is now actually in the middle of Bedford Street itself below.

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