A Brief History of Palace Gate and its Buildings

A small fragment of pre-war central Exeter survives at Palace Gate left. Despite some unfortunate demolitions at the end of the 19th century and in the 1930s, it remains one of the more attractive parts of the city centre. Palace Gate, also called Palace Street, follows a steep incline from South Street up to the west front of Exeter Cathedral, taking in a small area known as Deanery Square or Deanery Place.

The area is full of interest, both historical and architectural. From c1200 Palace Gate was the home to some of Exeter's most prominent medieval churchmen. The Bishop, the Precentor, the Archdeacon of Exeter and the Dean all had large residences at Palace Gate and the impressive townhouse of the Abbots of Tavistock Abbey, later The Bear inn, backed onto it. Sir Walter Raleigh's parents lived in a house "adjoyning the Palace-gate" in the late 16th century and it was here that Raleigh's mother died in 1594. The funeral of his father took place at the nearby church of St Mary Major in 1581. According to a plan devised by Exeter Archaeology, the lower part of Palace Gate, from South Street to what is now the gatehouse to the Bishop's Palace, was in existence by the end of the 9th century.

Based on Hedgeland's great model of Exeter in 1769, detail above: 1 Archdeacon of Exeter's House, 2 Palace Gate, 3 Bishop's Palace Gatehouse, 4 Deanery Place, 5 The Chantry, 6 Bear Gate, 7 The Deanery, 8 Nos. 1 & 2 The Cloisters, 9 Site of St James's Church

The upper part of the street is a slightly later development and perhaps dates to the creation of the office of the Dean by Bishop Brewer in 1225. The Deanery in Palace Gate has certainly been on the same site since 1301 when a visitation described the house as "much improved". The upper part, from Deanery Square to the cathedral, could've developed its present twisting alignment as a result of the cloisters being built in the early 13th century (and rebuilt in the late 14th century), a construction that forced the street out into a curve before returning towards the cathedral.

Anyway, the best place to start is back at South Street. On the left-hand corner of South Street and Palace Gate stood the parish church of St James. It was in existence by c1190 although it had a relatively short lifespan. By 1386 the church had been demolished and the site was vacant, probably a result of the poverty of its parish. The parish was united with that of Holy Trinity, further down South Street towards the South Gate, and little more is heard of it. And then in 1878 Kennaway's wine merchants, located in Palace Gate, decide to extend their cellars.

The excavations were centred on a courtyard and "partly under a house lately in the occupation of Mr Northway". The finds that were unearthed were described in the 'Exeter Flying Post' as "quite a mine of archaeological treasures", including Roman coins, Samian pottery, bones of animals, bronze articles and "no less than eighteen human skeletons, more or less perfect". The bodies had been buried in a "very irregular manner, and no indications of coffins were to be found". It's very possible that the skeletons were indeed associated with the former parish church of St James.

Until 1956 the site of the church was occupied by a timber-framed building from c1650. Unfortunately, despite surviving the Exeter Blitz of 1942, the property was demolished by the City Council for road-widening and an ugly structure was built on the site, above left. Archaeological deposits must've been disturbed when the post-war building was constructed but I've no idea what was found or even if it was recorded. The opposite corner fared little better. It was badly damaged during the Blitz and the remains were cleared, the road widened and an inexcusably poor building arose from the ashes.

Fortunately things improve further up the street. No. 3 Palace Gate, next to the site of the old church, is the former premises of the above-mentioned Kennaway wine merchants. A Grade II listed building, it was established in 1743 and has an early 19th century stucco front. Next door are Nos. 5, 7 & 9 Palace Gate, three handsome Grade II listed red-brick Georgian townhouses from c1800 with string courses, modillion cornices and sash windows above right. There are also attractive coade stone decorations around the arched doorways with sculpted keystones, similar to those found in the surviving townhouses at Southernhay and Colleton Crescent. The interiors have been relatively little altered and still contain some late 18th century panelling and original staircases.

Outside No.9 Palace Gate is a short stone post engraved with the words "Palace Gate Removed 1812" left. A matching post once stood on the opposite side of the road but it has now disappeared. The post commemorates Palace Gate, one of a series of ancient gates that were built to restrict access into the cathedral precinct. The gatehouses were first installed as a security measure at the end of the 13th century following the murder of the cathedral's precentor, Walter Lechlade.

The Palace Gate spanned what was a much narrower street than it appears today and was designed to be wide enough to allow horses and carts to pass beneath it. The gate was refurbished in 1768 but was described as "mean", noteworthy only for its "antiquity" by Jenkins in 1806. The gate's location is depicted on Hedgeland's early 19th century model of Exeter. It was demolished for road-widening in 1812. Close to the gate was an ancient tavern known as the 'Peter Bell', named after the great 'Peter' bell that hangs in the north tower of the cathedral, originally given to the cathedral by Bishop Peter Courtenay in 1484. (Recast in 1676, the 'Peter' bell weighs about four tons.) The 'Peter Bell' inn was pulled down along with the gate.

Opposite the post marking the position of the Palace Gate are two more houses of interest: Nos. 14 and 16 Palace Gate. Both Grade II listed, they stand on the sites of medieval tenements and it's possible that medieval fabric remains within the party walls at basement and first floor level.

No. 16 was probably reconstructed and set back from the road when the Palace Gate was demolished as the gate was formerly attached to the front of the building. No. 14 also dates to the first decades of the 19th century. Slightly further up from Nos. 14 and 16 is the former Archdeacon of Exeter's House. Now Grade I listed, it is medieval in origin and contains "one of the finest 15th century roofs in southwest England" (English Heritage). Adjacent to Archdeacon's House is the 14th century gatehouse to The Bishop's Palace, also Grade I listed above.

A little further up still and on the left is the hulking brick mass of The Chantry left. The medieval buildings, formerly the residence of the cathedral's precentor in the High Middle Ages, were sadly demolished and rebuilt in the 1860s. On the right is a long stretch of Grade II listed medieval walling that forms part of the boundary of the Bishop's Palace grounds.

The street opens out here into Deanery Place which until the 19th century had a much more enclosed appearance than it does today. The demolition of The Chantry in the 1860s, the Bear Gate in 1813, the Bear Inn in the 1880s and a row of late medieval houses on the north side of Bear Street in the 1930s hasn't improved the appearance of the area at all. Opposite the former Chantry, now the Exeter Cathedral School, is Church House, a huge four storey block from c1800 constructed from reused rubble stone. It dominates the area almost as much as the nearby cathedral. The complex rear of the building dates to the mid 17th century when the cloisters were demolished and a serge market built in their place. Church House replaced an almost equally large building that is shown on Braun and Hogenberg's 1587 map of Exeter.

Nos. 1 and 2 Deanery Place are more attractive. Both Grade II listed, No. 2 Deanery Place dates to the end of the 18th century. Built of Heavitree stone it has a stucco facade. An ancient house attached to the left was called Selwood's Cottage until it was demolished in the early 20th century (probably in the 1930s). No. 1 Deanery Place is older than its neighbour. The 18th century facade disguises a late medieval building that possibly retains elements of The Deanery's gatehouse.

The Deanery itself, a Grade II* listed building. It was here that Catherine of Aragon was kept awake by a squeaky weathervane in October 1501 as she journeyed from Plymouth to meet her future husband, Prince Arthur. Unfortunately The Deanery is nearly hidden behind a high rubble wall. Opposite The Deanery, at the end of Palace Gate and the last surviving houses before the cathedral, are Nos. 1and 2 The Cloisters. These date to 1762 and are also Grade II* listed. A lot of recycled medieval stone work can be seen in the walls, especially at No. 2 above right. It's likely that the pale stone work came from the cathedral's late 14th century cloisters.

This brief survey of one small part of Exeter hopefully suggests something of the historical and architectural richness of the city before the onset of the 20th century. The other fragments of Exeter's historical centre e.g. the Cathedral Close, Southernhay, The Quay, The Mint and Queen Street, demonstrate why Exeter was once regarded as perhaps the most picturesque city in southern England.

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The Archdeacon of Exeter's House, Palace Gate

It might not look much from the outside but this complex of different buildings is one of the most historically and architecturally important properties in Exeter. Grade I listed, it has a recorded history stretching back nearly 900 years. And most remarkably of all, behind the uneventful facades is one of the finest surviving structures from Exeter's rich medieval past: a spectacular early 15th century roof that once crowned the property's Great Hall, shown left in 1995 © Exeter Archaeology.

The history of what is known as the Archdeacon of Exeter's House is very long and very complex as it has been altered numerous times over many centuries but it began life in the middle of the 12th century. A property on this same site is recorded in documents from c1150 and c1188. A deed from c1210, cited by Lega-Weekes, refers to "land and houses" belonging to the Archdeacons of Exeter* that were "next to the Bishop's court", "adjoining the Bishop's gate" and "next to the gate of the Lord Bishop of Exeter". This places the early 13th century "land and houses" in the same place as the Grade I listed structure today, close to the grounds of the Bishop's Palace and almost adjacent to the palace's gatehouse.

Although known as the residence of the Archdeacon of Exeter, for some of its existence the building was also used by the medieval Archdeacons of Cornwall.

One such archdeacon, Walter, is believed to have begun the current property, specifically the great hall, in around 1200. A 13th century document in the cathedral's archives refers to "the great Hall which Walter, Archdeacon of Cornwall constructed". 

By the end of the 15th century the residence had reverted back to the Archdeacons of Exeter, by which time it had achieved its late medieval form. By at least 1500 the residence was a courtyard house, a form found at nearly all of Exeter's great ecclesiastical residences during the end of the Middle Ages e.g. the townhouses of the Abbots of Tavistock, the Abbots of Buckfast Abbey and the Priors of Plympton Priory as well the Chantry, the Chancellor's House and several canons houses in the Cathedral Close. These houses were distinguished by the presence of a gatehouse, a great hall, a chapel and private chambers built in ranges around a central courtyard as well as stables and accommodation for servants. 

The front gatehouse range at the Archdeacon of Exeter's house at Palace Gate has since been demolished but it is visible in the plan of Palace Gate and South Street drawn by John Hooker in the mid 16th century, above right. The 'Great Hall' is still essentially the building painted a sort of salmon pink in the photo below, though much altered. 

The late 19th century brick building to the far right in the same photo corresponds with the 'Chamber Block' on Hooker's plan, fragments of which survive in the present structure. Hooker hasn't included the late medieval range to the north, parts of which survive in the unit known today as the The Coach House. With its end wall facing into Palace Gate, part of the white wall and roof of The Coach House can be seen to the left in the photograph below.

The gatehouse range was perhaps the first part of the residence to be demolished and it doesn't appear on Caleb Hedgeland's early 19th century model of Exeter in 1769. In a detail from the model above left some of the residence's buildings have been highlighted in red. The approximate location of the missing gatehouse range is highlighted in purple. It's easy to see how the late medieval buildings would've been arranged around a central courtyard. (What does appear on the model is the old Palace Gate, spanning the narrow street close to the missing gatehouse. One of the gated entrances into the cathedral precinct, the Palace Gate originated in the late 13th century. Not to be confused with the surviving gatehouse to the Bishop's Palace, the Palace Gate was demolished in 1812.)

The Archdeacon of Exeter's House was massively altered around 1830 when the surviving ranges were remodelled and further additions were made in the late 19th century. In 1896 the property was purchased by a Roman Catholic convent from William Peters, a former mayor of Exeter, and it was used as the Presentation of St Mary Convent School.

The school added an enormous two-storey brick-built chapel in 1928 and the property remained as a school until 1996 when it was closed and the buildings sold. In the late 1990s the school buildings were subdivided into six separate residential units. Fortunately the architectural significance of the site has resulted in the preservation of the most important historical features.

Despite all of the alterations, the property retains three late medieval buildings at its core. Part of the medieval chamber range survives to the south, along with what is possibly the site of the chapel under an addition from 1908. The north east range, now known as The Coach House and next to the gatehouse of the Bishop's Palace) is also late medieval in origin and part of the original roof survives.

However the most astonishing survival is the roof of the medieval great hall, now part of a unit called The Tudor House. During the modifications of the 1830s a new parallel frontage was added to the great hall (now painted salmon pink) completely disguising its origins, and the space was carved up into smaller rooms, a process that already seems to have begun in the 17th century. It was divided horizontally to make two floors and the roof appears to have remained almost forgotten, hidden above later ceilings, until it was practically rediscovered during an archaeological survey in the 1990s, a discovery of such importance that it increased the listed status of the building from Grade II to Grade I.

The roof of the great hall has six bays, twice the number of bays as at the almost contemporary roof of the Law Library. It is designed as a series of variant base-cruck trusses with intermediate trusses. The tie beams are richly moulded and there is evidence for carved bosses at the junctions of the intermediate trusses, purlins and windbraces. Some of the spandrels are infilled with boards pierced with decorative cinquefoil-headed mouchettes. Tree ring samples taken from the oak structural timbers returned a felling date of between 1415 and 1440.

The structure therefore forms part of a local group of outstanding medieval roofs around Exeter which includes two roofs at Bowhill above left just beyond the city walls, and one each at the Guildhall right, at the Law Library below and at the Deanery. Unfortunately the roof at the Archdeacon of Exeter's House isn't viewable, and it is still hidden above the later ceilings, but it has been described by English Heritage as "one of the finest 15th century roofs in southwest England, of national importance and distinguished by its base cruck form, upper roof construction and the quality of its moulded and carved detail." These roofs really are one of the city's greatest glories.

It's hard not to be impressed by Exeter as it was in the 15th century. The late Middle Ages was one of the cultural highlights of the city's 2000 year history. Just within the 93 acres of the city walls there was Rougemont Castle, the Cathedral, the recently rebuilt Guildhall, numerous small parish churches, a sprawl of spectacular ecclesiastical residences, a Benedictine monastery, a Dominican friary, medieval gatehouses within the city wall, medieval gatehouses within the wall of the cathedral precinct and a large number of impressive timber-framed merchant houses. It was the county town of Devonshire and the great capital of the southwest peninsula of Britain, a status reflected in the architecture of the city itself.

*The story of Exeter's archdeaconries begins with the Anglo-Saxon Leofric who, in 1050, became the first Bishop of Exeter. It was probably Leofric who introduced an archdeacon at Exeter, a huge diocese that covered all of Devon and Cornwall. Following the Norman Conquest such large dioceses in England proved difficult to manage for a single bishop and so, from the 11th century onwards, they were subdivided into separate archdeaconries. An archdeacon was appointed to oversee his own particular archdeaconry in which he could act in the absence of the bishop (who was often away at the Royal court or on the Continent). By the end of the 11th century there were four archdeacons at Exeter, one for each of the archdeaconries of Exeter, Cornwall, Totnes and Barnstaple. Between them they effectively covered the whole of Devon and Cornwall and, eventually, each office came with its own house within the cathedral precinct at Exeter. The Diocese of Truro was formed out of the old Archdeaconry of Cornwall in 1876.

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Gatehouse of the Bishop's Palace, Palace Gate

The gatehouse of the Bishop’s Palace is a Grade I listed building. Unfortunately, because of a number of insensitive alterations over the last 150 years, its current appearance is a bit of a mess. But at least it still exists, which is more than can be said for nearly every other medieval gatehouse in Exeter. 

The core of the building dates to the 14th century and is perhaps contemporary with a major extension of the palace by Bishop Grandisson around 1340. Much of the gatehouse is constructed from rough blocks of purple volcanic trap, typically used for high status buildings in Exeter before the 1400s, although there has been a lot of patching during subsequent centuries. The arrow slits and the main entrance arch are original, even if they have been significantly restored. The arched window openings also perhaps date to the 14th century. There is evidence in the west end wall of a large, medieval pointed archway, now blocked. The Georgian sashes were added in the 18th century along with a new staircase. William Butterfield added the cusped Gothic stone windows in 1875 and seems to have raised the height of the building. The rooms built into the modern roof space are a particularly unfortunate addition. 

It has all been so altered that it's hard to imagine what the building looked like when first completed. I don't know if any features of interest survive inside but it seems unlikely given the extent of the alterations. In the Westcountry Studies Library is an intriguing sketch made by John Gendell in 1829 right © Devon County Council. It is entitled 'Part of the Palace Gate being the only remains'. It shows a room strewn with barrels, above which can be seen a fine plasterwork ceiling of a late 16th century type. It is similar in style to an existing ceiling at St Nicholas's Priory. It seems likely that Gendell's sketch does indeed show the interior of the gatehouse of the Bishop's Palace. The ceiling was presumably destroyed either before or during Butterfield's 'improvements' as there is nothing to indicate it still exists today, either in the gatehouse or in any other building in Exeter.

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The Bishop's Palace, Palace Gate

Constructed on a vast scale during the Middle Ages, by the end of the 15th century the Bishop's Palace at Exeter left would've been one of the most opulent medieval houses in the West of England. Unfortunately, so little of it has survived intact that it must now be regarded as one of the city's greatest lost buildings. 

Abandoned by its owners at the end of the 15th century, it was sold off during the Commonwealth in the mid 17th century, suffered again at the hands of improvers during the 18th century before being almost completely rebuilt by the Victorians in the 1840s and 1870s. 

Today’s much-reduced structure is essentially a product of the 19th century with a few older elements embedded within it, described by Hugh Meller as "sterile fragments of a once great medieval house". From the 11th century until the Reformation, the medieval bishops of Exeter had over twenty high-status domestic residences for their own personal use e.g. at Exeter, Ashburton, Chudleigh and Paignton, Yarcombe, Bishop's Nympton, Bishopsteignton, Bishop's Tawton and Bishop's Clyst. (The property at Bishop's Clyst, known today as Bishop's Court, is a Grade I listed building and contains large amounts of 13th century fabric from the medieval palace. Significant 13th century ruins also exist from the former palaces at Bishopsteignton and Paignton.) 

Not only was the residence at Exeter the largest and most substantial of these numerous properties but it was almost certainly the largest medieval domestic building ever constructed within the perimeter of Exeter’s city walls, dwarfing even such extensive properties as the Deanery, the Chantry and the Treasurer's House. (The largest private house ever built within the walls was probably the post-Reformation Bedford House fashioned out of the dissolved Dominican Friary by Lord John Russell in the mid 16th century.)

The detail from Braun and Hogenberg's map of Exeter right shows the Bishop's Palace in the late 16th century. The gatehouse at Palace Gate is visible as is the Great Courtyard beyond with the wall dividing the courtyard from the bishop's garden. Also shown are the palace's main block with the embattled south porch in the centre, the service rooms to the right of the porch and the great hall to the left.

According to Lega-Weekes there are references to the 'Bishop's Gate' as early as the 12th century and the first phase of the palace was constructed sometime between c1170 and c1240. There is some disagreement about the exact date but according to the Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum the Bishop’s Palace is “the only house still standing in Devon which dates from the Norman period”, although little of the medieval palace actually remains. This early phase of the palace included a great hall, a service wing, a solar for the bishop’s private use, and a chapel. At least by the 14th century the palace grounds were entered through a fortified gatehouse which, although much modified, still stands today at Palace Gate. Beyond the gatehouse was the Great Courtyard surrounded by stables and lodgings for the servants. To the left was a wall, on the other side of which was the bishop’s private gardens. The courtyard and wall are long gone and the palace now stands amongst lawns and shrubs, laid out by the early 18th century and largely unchanged today. It is perhaps the oldest garden in Devon.

The South Porch and Inner Doorway

One of the palace’s few remaining 13th century elements is the monumental inner doorway of the south porch, the main entrance into the palace itself. The inner doorway left dates to c1200 and features late transitional-style zigzag mouldings combined with stiff-leaf capitals on slender shafts either side of the entrance. This massive portal led directly into a wide cross-passage. Inside this passageway, to the right, were three more arched doorways. One doorway led into a buttery and another into a pantry. The middle doorway led into an enormous eastern service range containing a great kitchen with a brewhouse and a bakehouse. Across the other side of the cross-passage, to the left, a doorway led via a wooden screen into the colossal great hall.

The Great Hall

The 13th century great aisled hall of the Bishop's Palace was approximately 75ft long and 42ft wide. It was, I believe, the largest open domestic interior space ever built in medieval Exeter. The palace hall had three bays and two side aisles. These aisles were formed by two rows of wooden arcade posts, four posts in total, which helped to support the roof structure. One of these posts still survives in situ on the ground floor, although reduced in height. Carved from oak, its cross-section is in the form of a quatrefoil. Three more fragments of similar posts exist in the roof space where they were reused during 17th century alterations, one of which shows traces of stiff leaf carving. The survey of 1647 reported that the hall had “a high roof supported with four great pillars of squared timber”. In the context of other buildings in 13th century Devon this hall would’ve been gargantuan. 

The hall was perhaps modelled on slightly earlier examples at Leicester Castle and the Bishop’s Palace at Hereford. The photograph above right shows the eastern end wall of the palace today. The three arched openings at the bottom were probably the doorways that led from the cross-passage into the now-demolished service rooms. Unfortunately, apart from some of the fabric of the walls, and the footprint of the structure itself, little else of the medieval great hall now survives. Two large buttresses in the north wall of the hall range, built from purple volcanic trap. According to Pevsner and Cherry, the buttresses are perhaps 13th century in date and probably reflect the division of the hall into three bays with a window between each buttress.

The Chapel of St Faith

Another surviving feature of the palace is the bishop's chapel. This was on the upper floor of a two-storey building attached to the north-west corner of the great hall. The chapel was dedicated to St Mary by Bishop Brewer c1235 and, according to George Oliver, it was used “to celebrate perpetual obits of the deceased Bishops of Exeter”. 

The oldest surviving parts of the original chapel are the three tall lancet windows in the east wall, rare examples in Exeter of Early English Gothic architecture. The chapel has a timber wagon roof with small, carved bosses, probably installed as part of Bishop Grandisson’s 14th century improvements. The exterior walls have been refaced with Heavitree stone although the bulk of the walling is probably 13th century in date. The early bishops' private chamber, known as the “bishop’s camera”, was close to the chapel and was accessed from the great hall via a spiral staircase in one corner. 

The image above left shows the general layout of the Bishop's Palace as it existed c1250 overlaid onto an aerial view of the palace. Only the chapel and the footprint of the Great Hall still survive from the 13th century. The similar image right shows the enormous extent of the palace following the creation of the new episcopal apartments in the 14th century, outlined in purple. Nothing of these have survived above ground. The projected wall lines on both images are based on plans by John Chanter.

Edward II granted Bishop Peter Quinil a licence to crenellate the palace in 1290 and another licence was issued to Bishop Stapledon in 1322. Almost nothing of the great episcopal apartments of the medieval bishops now survives but by the end of the Middle Ages these private apartments had been massively enlarged. The great hall, the eastern service wing and the chapel retained their early 13th century form but a new two-storey range was built to the west, probably started by Bishop Grandisson c1330. The new west wing contained numerous rooms e.g. the old solar was expanded to form a new open hall for the bishop’s private use and a new parlour was created in the wing’s south-west corner. George Oliver certainly believed that Grandisson was responsible for the new west wing. In 1821 he wrote that "On some of the beams of what appears to have been a spacious hall, [Grandisson's] armorial bearings, and those of Montacutes, were lately discovered."

Something of the decorative splendour of the Grandisson’s improvements can be seen in four surviving oak bosses, three of which are in the Victoria and Albert Museum. These bosses, each about 50cm in diameter, formed part of a ceiling from Grandisson’s own sumptuous parlour in the new west wing. In 1848 the chamber was described as having an oak roof made up of ornamental crossbeams. The bosses would’ve been installed where one beam or rib butted up against another. It has been suggested, by Charles Tracy, that this ceiling was designed by the great medieval architect, Thomas of Witney, in collaboration with the cathedral’s master carpenter. 

One of these bosses, depicting a lioness, is shown above left © Victoria and Albert Museum. It would've originally been painted and gilded. Apart from these four bosses nothing now remains of the ceiling. (Thomas of Witney worked at Exeter Cathedral from c1313 until 1342 and, amongst other things, designed the vast wooden architectural canopy for Bishop Stapledon’s throne, described by Pevsner and Cherry as “the most exquisite piece of woodwork of its date in England and perhaps in Europe”.)

Another medieval bishop who left his mark on the palace was Peter Courtenay, described by Shakespeare in ‘Richard III’ as a “haughty prelate”. One of Courtenay’s additions still survives today in the form of a remarkable stone overmantel, detail right. Described as “exceedingly ostentatious” by Pevsner, it was installed between 1485 and 1486 in the bishop’s parlour in the west wing. This is probably the finest of a series of spectacular late medieval stone fireplaces that were created for various ecclesiastical residences in Exeter between c1450 and c1540 e.g. the John Coombe fireplace place formerly in the Chantry.

Despite experiencing various modifications and some general neglect throughout the16th century, the Bishop’s Palace retained its late medieval form until the middle of the 17th century. In 1647, following the English Civil War, the palace along with all the other property belonging to the Dean and Chapter was confiscated by the Exeter Corporation. In 1650 it was sold to the governors of St John’s Hospital (which stood near to the East Gate on the High Street) for £450 and in 1653 the palace was divided into tenements. Part of it was leased to someone named Ford who used some of the palace buildings as a sugar refinery. (Ford’s lease was for 31 years at £60 a year.) According to Bryan Mawer, the palace is the “oldest surviving sugar refining building in the UK”. During building works in 1821, “many vestiges of the sugar refinery were here discovered” (Oliver).

The engraving left shows the 14th century west wing in 1819. The bishop's parlour is almost adjacent to the Perpendicular window of the chapter house of the cathedral. Next to it, the wall supported by buttresses, is the bishop's private hall. Just visible to the far right is the west corner of what was the great hall, the ground floor remodelled with semi-circular windows. The photo below right shows the same view after the palace was rebuilt in the mid 19th century.

The palace was restored to the Dean and Chapter after the Restoration of 1660 but it had been severely damaged. The buildings were repaired by Bishop Seth Ward between 1662 and 1671 but it was either at this time or during the Commonwealth that the great hall was totally ruined. The timber piers were cut out and the huge open space was divided into four squat floors divided by a wall that ran through the centre of the hall. (These four floors were replaced in the 18th century with just two floors containing rooms with higher ceilings.) Other mid 17th century alterations included the replacing the hall’s medieval roof with the twin gables that can be seen today. But the worst was still to come.

The palace underwent further extensive modifications in the 18th century during the reign of Bishop Keppel. According to Jenkins, writing in 1806, Keppel “expended great sums on the Bishop’s Palace, which was very much out of repair, having been sadly neglected by his predecessors, and also made great additions to it”. Jenkins describes the palace as “though not a regular is a very extensive and commodious house; it has a neat chapel, and several elegant apartments, in one of which is an ancient and curious chimneypiece, embellished with carving in the gothic style” (this is the above-mentioned Courtenay fireplace, a copy of which is at Powderham Castle). 

Unfortunately Keppel had removed the fireplace from its original location in the medieval parlour of the west wing and placed it in one of the new rooms carved out of the hall range. Between 1762 and 1764 Bishop Keppel also converted the early 13th century service wing into chaplain’s apartments and many of the medieval windows were replaced with Georgian sashes.

According to Pevsner and Cherry, "the service rooms were converted into chaplain's apartments in 1762-1764 and demolished in 1812", reducing the size of the medieval palace by about one third. The three arched doorways that once led from the cross-passage into the service rooms became glazed exterior windows. (The removal of the former great kitchen and brewhouse explains why the south porch now appears strangely out of place, stuck on the corner of the former great hall.) 

Despite Pevsner and Cherry's claim, it seems that the service wing was demolished well before 1812. A 1709 map of the city, detail left, shows the Bishop's Palace with an already greatly truncated eastern range George Oliver described the palace in 1821 as “an irregular, mis-shapen, and patched-up building”, and when Henry Phillpotts became Bishop of Exeter in 1830 he preferred not to live in the palace. (The autocratic, deeply conservative Bishop Phillpotts was perhaps the most unpopular bishop ever to hold the post at Exeter. His continued opposition to the 1832 Reform Bill resulted in a mob attacking the palace, his effigy being burned in the city along with Guy Fawkes on November 5th of the same year.) But, according to Oliver, prior to Phillpotts’ arrival the palace had “been suffered to go so much out of repair, as scarcely to be habitable”. Phillpotts built himself a large villa at Bishopstowe near Torquay and spent a lot of his episcopate there. 

Disaster struck between 1846 and 1848 when much of the palace at Exeter was almost completely rebuilt by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The architect was Ewan Christian, who was later to rebuild the city’s medieval Chantry. The palace’s entire west wing, enlarged by Grandisson in the 14th century, was demolished and the medieval parlour and small open hall disappeared completely. Only the chapel was retained. A new, much smaller, neo-Tudor west wing was built in its place using some of the rubble (this is now holds the cathedral’s library and archives). A 14th century octagonal tower was pulled down and re-erected on the south-west corner of the new wing and the south wall of the former great hall was completely rebuilt. A superb three-storey, late medieval bay window, salvaged from the recently demolished house of Thomas Elyot at No. 73 High Street, was cut down, rearranged and inserted into the south wall.

The engraving above right from 1823 shows the South Porch prior to its modification in the 19th century. The lower half, built from purple volcanic trap, is probably 14th century. The upper half, with decorative shields surmounted by mitres, was added in the early 16th century probably by Bishop Oldham. Comparison with the image below illustrates the extent of the Victorian alterations.

The image left is an animated early stereoscopic view of the palace c1870 with the South Tower of the cathedral in the background.

Despite all of this rebuilding/demolition in 1870 the palace was described in the ‘Exeter Flying Post’ as "the gloomiest pile of old stone in the city” and “a very disagreeable Tudor prison”. William Butterfield made further ‘improvements’ to both the palace and its gatehouse in the 1870s for Bishop Temple who was, according to Pevsner and Cherry, “the first bishop to use the palace as a residence since the Middle Ages”. The south porch received an extra storey, complete with battlements and a new oriel window, and the chapel was ‘restored’ with Victorian wall paintings and stained glass. Fortunately the chapel’s medieval wagon roof was left intact but the damage had already been done. The chapel and the footprint of the great aisled hall, along with a small handful of other surviving features, are the only existing remnants of the medieval palace. Most of the historical fabric has been completely destroyed.

In his 1932 book about the palace’s history, John Chanter described it as “a most uncomfortable and badly planned house that man ever conceived”. Further alterations were made in 1952, including the relocation, yet again, of Peter Courtenay’s fireplace. Perhaps surprisingly, the Bishop's Palace is a Grade I listed building and even if it doesn't contain much historical architecture it remains a site of enormous historical interest. The palace grounds can be visited as part of the city’s Red Coat guided tours. The palace itself remains closed to the public.

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Bear Street, Bear Gate & Bear Tower

Today Bear Street hardly exists. The north side is nothing but a car park hidden behind a modern wall and the south side is completely dominated by the side wall of a late 19th century church left. But the area is thick with history and Bear Street, just 180ft (56m) long, was the site of several structures of significant historical interest. Traces of its medieval past remained until 1966 and yet none of it now survives. So what went wrong?

The site of Bear Street is ancient, lying within the boundaries of the mid-1st century Roman fortress. In 1953 part of a Roman drain or conduit was found in Bear Street. The drain carried waste water away from the public baths which stood near the Deanery's garden c180 AD. There is some archaeological evidence that Bear Street was first laid out on its current alignment as early as the 9th century. It might've once connected South Street with the Anglo-Saxon minster which stood just west of the present Gothic cathedral. According to this theory, Saxon Bear Street would've been much longer than it is today, extending across the city as far as what is now Princesshay. The street was considerably shortened in length when the boundaries of the cathedral precinct were established and by the end of the 13th century it only led to Deanery Place and Palace Gate, as it still does today. In 1286, following the murder of the precentor Walter Lechlade, the Dean and Chapter received a royal licence from Edward I to encircle the cathedral precinct with a wall and gatehouses, and one of these gatehouses was situated in Bear Street.

The Bear Gate

A document relating to the circumvallation gives quite precise details about the location of the gate, later known as Bear Gate. It was located at the top of Bear Street and consisted of one gate 8ft wide for pack-horses leading into "the lane between the house of the Dean of Exeter and the house now of Roger de Derteford". The gate had wooden doors that were locked every evening at the curfew. It must've been a relatively simple structure, especially in comparison with the great Broad Gate on the High Street. Hooker's 16th century plan of South Street shows Bear Gate with a simple pitched roof. On the Braun and Hogenburg map of 1587 the gate consists of just a stone archway right. The range of buildings on the right side of the street formed the north wall of the Bear Inn, the former townhouse of the Abbots of Tavistock Abbey.

There's some evidence that by 1584 the gate had a chamber above it as a Mr Barcombe was required to pay two pence every year in consideration of "his new building over the gate going into the churchyard by the said Bear Gate". The Bear Gate was demolished in the Spring of 1813. According to Michael Fodor in his booklet 'Gates of the Close', the materials were salvaged by Thomas Matthews for £10.

The Bear Tower

Of almost equal interest was the Bear Tower. It was embedded within a later property, close to the junction with South Street and opposite the side wall of the Bear Inn. It dated at least to the 14th century and was built from blocks of purple volcanic trap. A blocked Gothic doorway in the south wall of the tower once gave access directly onto Bear Street. There was also a very large blocked archway in the east wall, almost like the chancel arch of a church. The tower was perhaps 20ft high and approximately 15ft square at the base. Jenkins saw it in 1806: "The opposite corner of Bear Lane bears evident marks of antiquity. According to tradition it was a Nunnery". Lega-Weekes also recalled seeing the property in 1915: "The ancient side wall of the house at one corner of Bear Lane shews traces in its masonry of a large arched window or doorway at first floor level, and a smaller stopped window above that; and this, like other old masonry in the house is about three feet thick".

The drawing above left © Devon County Council is by local artist John Gendall and dates to c1840. It shows the interior of the Bear Tower. The partially open door which once exited onto Bear Street is visible in the centre. A stone spiral staircase can be seen rising through the centre of the tower. (The staircase was removed c1860.) No-one knows the function of the Bear Tower. Jenkins believed it was related to an Augustinian nunnery which was possibly on this site. It's also possible that it was connected to an earlier phase of the townhouse of the Abbots of Tavistock, on the other side of the street. The townhouse was reputedly rebuilt in 1481 and perhaps the Bear Tower was part of the earlier townhouse. The Bear Gate always seems to have been located at the other end of Bear Street so it's unlikely that the Bear Tower was related to that. The purpose of the tower remains a mystery. The image below right shows Bear Street as it appears on Hedgeland's early 19th century model of Exeter.

During the Exeter Blitz of 1942 the early 19th century house which had been built around the Bear Tower was destroyed by fire. But the fire was no match for the tower's thick masonry and a significant amount of the 14th century structure remained standing (much like the Gothic windows and medieval walls at the Black Lions Inn on the other side of South Street). The Bear Tower stood on the corner of Bear Street and South Street for a further 24 years.

Despite being listed as one of Exeter's ancient monuments in the 1950s, in December 1965 the city council obtained permission from the Minister of Public Works to demolish the tower completely. In an act of either gross stupidity or pig ignorance, the remains of the 14th century building were destroyed in January 1966. It's not surprising that some people believe the philistine post-war city council merely finished what the Germans had already started in 1942. The government had stipulated that the foundations be left preserved and exposed. Naturally, this didn't happen and today the site of the Bear Tower is a flower bed.

Nos. 2 to 8, Bear Street

The image left shows a detail from the 1905 OS map of Exeter overlaid onto an aerial view of the same area. Properties demolished since 1905 are highlighted in red.

The Bear Tower wasn't the only historical structure on Bear Street which managed to stagger into the 20th century. Nos. 2 to 8 Bear Street occupied almost the entire north side of the street, facing out onto the side wall of the Bear Inn (and later the Roman Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart). An auction annoucement in 1809 stated that several of these houses, "situate adjoining Bear Gate, and fronting Bear Lane" were held "by lease under the Dean of Exeter". In fact all of these properties on the north side of the street were owned by the Dean and Chapter and were part of the boundary between the city and the cathedral precinct.

In the summer of 1871 the 'Exeter Flying Post' carried a report that the Dean, in conjunction with the city council, had decided to authorise the widening of Bear Street "on the north side by fifteen feet throughout, from the junction with Palace Street to the last house fronting South Street". The fronts of the houses on the north side of Bear Street were all apparently set back to allow the road to be widened. I'm not convinced that this actually happened to the extent suggested in the newspaper report. Either way, the rears of Nos. 2 to 8 Bear Street were much older than the street facades. Arthur Everett examined the row of properties in the 1930s and discovered that the back walls and roofs dated to c1500. The great age of the buildings was of little consequence as the entire lot was demolished in 1938. It never seems to have occurred to the local authority that Exeter's stock of medieval housing was a finite resource. It's a sobering thought that more medieval and early post-medieval buildings were probably demolished in Exeter between 1900 and 1939 than were ever destroyed during World War Two.

The location of the ancient houses today is a car park partially hidden behind a shabby wall. There's now no sign above ground of the Bear Gate or the Bear Tower, the ancient houses or the old Bear Inn. The photograph below shows the site of the Bear Tower, the foundations lying somewhere beneath the flowerbed to the right of the remarkably poor flat-roofed post-war shack on South Street. The entrance into Bear Street is visible to the far right.

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The Chantry, Deanery Place

The role of the precentor at Exeter has been established since at least 1154 when John the Chaunter is recorded as being the first holder of the post. The title comes from the Latin 'praecantare', meaning 'to sing before', and it was the precentor's job to oversee music and liturgy associated with masses held in Exeter Cathedral. 

By the end of the 13th century it had evolved into a very significant position and, along with the dean, treasurer and chancellor, was one of the four most senior roles associated with the cathedral's hierarchy. Each of these roles came with a significant property, and the Chantry in Deanery Place was the precentor's residence.The city's most ill-fated precentor was probably William Lechlade, murdered in 1283 as he was returning to the Chantry. His death, in which the dean himself was involved, led to the construction of a large wall dotted with gatehouses around the perimeter of the cathedral precinct. The Chantry stood on a plot of land within this enclosure, bounded by Bear Street to the north and Palace Gate to the south, its front range overlooking a small open area known as Deanery Place. Unfortunately the property was completely demolished in the 1860s and only a handful of images exist which depict the structure prior to its destruction.

The image top shows a detail from Hedgeland's model of Exeter overlaid onto a modern aerial view of Palace Gate. The long building at the top of the image with the red-tiled roof is the Deanery. The quadrangle of the now-demolished cathedral cloisters is to the right. The extent of the Chantry site as depicted by Hedgeland is highlighted in red, separated from the street by a wall. Alas, it seems that Hedgeland's modelling of the buildings is inaccurate in this instance.

An almost contemporary description by Alexander Jenkins in 1806 stated that the Chantry was "a very ancient and roomy house, entirely surrounded by other buildings, and no part of it is to be seen except the entrance, which has a modern frontispiece." Writing after the Chantry had been demolished, Lega-Weekes recorded in 1915 that "I am told that the old mansion of the Precentor was hidden from view by smaller houses, and was entered through a narrow passageway between them". Fortunately enough information about the building is known to say at least something about it. The image above right depicts the precentor's coat of arms: a blue saltire against a silver background with a gold fleur-de-lis in the centre. It was in use by 1496 and was possibly used prior to 1477.

Perhaps the earliest depiction of the Chantry can be found on Hooker's plan of South Street c1560. It shows the Chantry as a sprawling complex of boundary walls, buildings and courtyards entered through a gatehouse in Deanery Place. Beyond the gatehouse is a large three storey building with an embattled parapet left. Other than the gatehouse and the large embatttled structure, it's difficult to know exactly which of the buildings and courtyards shown by Hooker were associated with the Chantry but the plan does give some idea of the significant extent of the residence in the 16th century and its prominence in the overall cityscape.

The very early phases of the building's construction are a mystery but a 17th century document provides a good description of what was probably the Chantry's late medieval form. Like other residences which belonged to the Dean and Chapter, the Chantry was confiscated during the Commonweath which followed the execution of Charles I in 1649. A document surviving from the sale of the Chantry on 23 June 1655 contains the following invaluable information. In 1655 the complex of buildings measured 120ft (37m) from west to east and 92ft (28m) from north to south. In the centre was a courtyard 40ft (12m) square. The gatehouse had one room on the right and two rooms on the left with a further four chambers above. In the courtyard, to the left, were stables with a loft above and a woodhouse. On the right was a porch leading to a "faire hall". The accommodation consisted of at least one hall, two parlours, one kitchen, two butteries and nine chambers with two further chambers in a third storey. Slate roofs covered the buildings and behind the property was a large garden measuring 110ft (34m) by 72ft (22m).

The description almost certainly records the Chantry's medieval plan. It was a courtyard house constructed around a central quadrangle with a range of buildings on each side, not dissimilar to other examples that once existed in the city.



These properties would've been amongst the most opulent domestic buildings in the city, far exceeding the houses of all but the very wealthiest of Exeter's merchants. It's unlikely that secular domestic buildings on the same scale existed within the city walls until after the Reformation and the construction of Bampfylde House and Bedford House in the 16th century. Based on the 1655 dimensions, the medieval Chantry covered an area only slightly smaller than the open ground within the former cloisters of the cathedral. Something of the courtyard arrangement at the Chantry can be seen in John Hooker's 16th century plan. Assuming that it had been remodelled in the 15th century the Chantry was almost certainly constructed from red Heavitree breccia. The exterior of the gatehouse range at least would've looked a little like some of the remaining canons' houses in the Cathedral Close e.g. No. 11 above (the former gatehouse to the Abbot's Lodge, No. 11 was completely rebuilt after almost total destruction in World War II).

Only one single image is known to exist showing anything of the interior of the Chantry prior to its demolition i.e. a photograph from c1868 of the much-modified John Coombe fireplace in the great hall. One other possible image is in the Westcountry Studies Library. Dated to c1840 it is a sketch by the Exeter artist, John Gendall. It is catalogued as 'The Old Hall of the Chantry, now the Law Library' left © Devon County Council. The magnificent medieval hall known as the Law Library is at No. 8 Cathedral Close and has a completely different roof structure to the one in the sketch so clearly it must show a different building. I've been told that the roof shown in the sketch isn't one which is still extant within the city but that the principal and intermediate roof trusses are characteristic of other high-status Exeter medieval roofs. I can find no record of the Chantry ever having been used as a Law Library but it's quite possible that this sketch does indeed show the "faire hall" of Exeter's medieval precentors.

The arch-braced principles with short curved ends and the very distinctive curving wind-braces shown in the sketch remind me of the 15th century timber roof in the guest hall at St Nicholas' Priory right, although the arrangement of the wind-braces is quite different at the priory. To the bottom left of the sketch can be seen a cross-section through the hall showing three doorways that led to the service rooms. Debris on the floor also suggests that the sketch was made at a time when the mystery room was undergoing either demolition or alteration. Either way, the guest hall at the priory gives another small insight into what the medieval Chantry was like.


Following the sale of the Chantry in 1655 it was possibly used as a hospital for soldiers incapacitated during the English Civil War. It was returned to the Dean and Chapter after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. It's difficult to know what state it was in by the end of the 17th century. The nearby Bishop's Palace was severely damaged during the Commonwealth when it was used as a sugar refinery. The only known 19th century illustration of the exterior of the Chantry, by George Townsend in 1867 below left © Devon County Council, shows that the building had undergone major alterations in the 18th or early 19th centuries. The fact that the Chantry was no longer visible from the street in 1806 suggests that some of its ranges and the land on which it stood had been subsumed into later housing.

Townsend's drawing depicts a large, square, three-storey extension with a porch, probably added in the 18th century. Attached to one side is a long, low building which is probably one of the surviving medieval ranges of the main residence, possibly that which contained the great hall. All of these structures are absent from Hedgeland's model. The south tower of the cathedral can be seen in the background to the right.

George Oliver lamented in 1860 that "the residence of the precentors has been so altered and modernised as almost to defy description". That may well have been the case but medieval elements from the earlier building must've remained embedded within the later alterations. It's highly likely that the "faire hall" mentioned in 1655 and possibly sketched by Gendall in the 1840s survived up until its destruction in the 1860s. An article in the 'Exeter Flying Post' from 1871 explicitly stated that the Chantry contained "a fine dining hall with an open roof...which had long since been converted into bedrooms". Clearly the hall had been divided horizontally at some point, as happened at the Deanery, with a first floor inserted but there's no reason to doubt that the medieval roof structure remained largely intact (as also happened at the Deanery).

Unfortunately the entire site was razed to the ground in the 1860s. The only surviving piece of the former Chantry today is the John Coombe fireplace, now in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum. The site remained empty for some time before it was occupied by a new Chantry building.

Designed by Ewan Christian, architect for the Ecclesiastical Commissioners from 1851, the property was completed in 1870 and it's hard to imagine a more stolid example of Victorian architecture. The diaper brickwork and stone door and window surrounds are small recompense for the loss of the old building. The modern aerial view right shows the extent of the 1870 Chantry, highlighted in red. The boundary wall is highlighted in purple. It still retains the pronounced curve to the north-east that is recorded both by Hooker in the 16th century and Hedgeland in the early 19th century. The former gardens are now all concrete and car parks.

The lack of a visually impressive front facade is particularly bizarre as each side looks as nondescript as the others. The overall appearance isn't helped by the fire escapes or the wire fencing which sits on top of part of the boundary wall. The demolition of the Chantry was criticised in a letter to the 'Exeter Flying Post' in 1894, in which it was described as one of the "priceless relics of the past" destroyed by often unnecessary rebuilding. There have always been people in Exeter who have lamented the demolition of the city's historical buildings, or the sale of historical artifacts, but such opinions have only rarely altered the outcome. The Chantry is now a locally listed building but its boundary wall has Grade II listed status, the lower courses of purple volcanic trap and sandstone dating back at least to the 18th century. Apart from that, there's nothing of historical interest to be seen above ground. The Chantry is no longer the precentor's house but is used as part of the Exeter Cathedral School.

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