St Edmund's Church, Exe Bridge

St Edmund's Church is, or was, another of the city's ancient parish churches. It is shown above in a very rare photograph from the 1860s, the dark stone church contrasting with late 17th century timber-framed houses that cluster around it. St Edmund's, or St Edmund on the Bridge, actually stood on the medieval Exe Bridge, as did the timber-framed houses, their sagging galleries and upper floors supported by a network of wooden timbers springing out from the stone arches of the bridge itself.

Like Holy Trinity and St Mary Major, the medieval fabric of St Edmund's suffered from almost complete reconstruction during the 19th century. Apart from portions of the tower, the church in the photograph only dated to the 1833 but the origins of the church were much older. There is some uncertainty about the date of the first church. According to David Francis, the first church on the site "was probably a very small chapel taken down when the first stone Exe Bridge was built c.1200". Cresswell believed the chapel was late Saxon in origin. Unfortunately there's no archaeological evidence to support such an early structure. A 'chaplain of the bridge' is mentioned in 1196, soon after construction of the bridge had started, and it's possible that this chaplain was associated with St Edmund's.

A chapel on the bridge dedicated to St Edmund was definitely in existence by c1200 as it is mentioned in the will of Peter de Palerna. If there was an earlier structure on the site then it would've been demolished and rebuilt when the new bridge was built. The chapel of St Edmund didn't become a parish church until 1222.

The image right shows a modern aerial view of the church overlaid onto which is the 1905 street plan of the city: remains of St Edmund's (1), the remains of the medieval Exe Bridge (2), the site of the lower leat (3), the site of the higher leat (4), the site of the West Gate (5), the original location of The House That Moved (6), the so-called 'Tudor House' in Tudor Street (7). The houses, factories and warehouses highlighted in red were demolished when the inner bypass was created in the 1960s and 1970s.

The great stone bridge that spanned the Exe, approximately 750ft long, was begun c1190 and probably took 40 or 50 years to complete. By the end of the 13th century there were three religious sites on it. A chantry chapel dedicated to St Mary, which stood opposite St Edmund's, and a chapel dedicated to St Thomas at the far (western) end of the bridge. St Edmund's stood at the eastern end, outside the city walls and close to the West Gate. It was built parallel with the bridge across two of the bridge's arches. The fabric of the church was supported underneath by stone pillars to allow water to pass underneath the church and through the spans of the bridge. (The place where the bridge started at its eastern end was more marsh than fast flowing river, at least for most of the year, the Exe being much wider and shallower then than it is today).

The drawing left shows St Edmund's Church in the 1830s before it was reconstructed. It looks like a normal street but it is in fact the carriageway of the medieval Exe Bridge with houses built on either side over the arches of the bridge. The two gabled houses next to the church tower are the street frontages of the two gabled houses that can be seen next to the church in the photograph at the top of this post.

The 13th century church was possibly a simple single-celled structure constructed from the same purple volcanic trap as the bridge itself. It underwent a series of alterations in the following centuries. The bell tower was added between 1448-1449 when Bishop Lacy was offering indulgences to anyone who would contribute towards the cost of a new belfry and a side aisle was added c1500. Fortunately a brief description of the late medieval church was made just after it had been almost completely demolished. The description appeared in an article in 'The Gentleman Magazine' in 1835: "The exterior, as far as could be seen, was built of red sandstone so common in the buildings of Exeter. The mullions and arches of the windows and doors, were executed in freestone, forming a pleasing variety. The doorcases and the two windows in the Church, with the lower one in the tower, are of the latter part of the fifteenth century. The square windows and door towards the east, are not earlier than the reign of Elizabeth. This portion of the structure may have been the residence of a chantry priest at a prior period. The interior consisted of a nave and side-aisle, divided by arches, either circular or very obscurely pointed, the columns octagonal, with moulded caps". The "red sandstone" was probably Heavitree breccia, a relatively poor quality stone used in Exeter from the 1350s onwards.

 The drawing above was executed by the author of the article. It was, he said, "taken from an opposite window on 1st August 1830, at which time the demolition of the Church was talked about. A crack was visible in the north wall; but probably the fondness for improvement which has led to the rebuilding of several of the churches in the city, was the actual cause of its demolition. The protecting Genius of the Church would exclaim 'repair,' but 'not destroy;' but this small still voice would be drowned in the yells of the Demon of Improvement". It was ever thus.

Alexander Jenkins fills in a couple more details relating to the post-1833 church in his brief description of 1806: "The tower is small and not very lofty. It is crowned with a small spire and vane; it has six bells, which from their situation near the river have a very pleasing sound". Jenkins also mentions some remnants of painted glass in the windows that featured the heraldic shields of various Devon families.

The photo right shows two of the remaining medieval pillars which once supported the floor of St Edmund's Church allowing water to flow under the church and through the bridge arch on the right.

The church was not only one of the four retained in Exeter during the Commonwealth that followed the English Civil War but it might've been the location for the city's first printing press. A printing press is known to have existed at Tavistock Abbey prior to the Reformation. After the abbey was dissolved in 1539 the press disappears. But in a will of 1567 the rector of St Edmund's, John Williams, cites "all such stuff as tooles concerning my printing with the matrice with the rest of the tooles concerning my press". It's probable that the rector was related in some way to William Williams, a known monk at Tavistock Abbey and that the press mentioned in 1567 was once at Tavistock Abbey.

On the morning of 19 August 1800 there was a tremendous thunderstorm over the city that raged for five or six hours. The church was struck by lightning, much to the excitement of the population. The "dial of the clock was beaten to pieces, the machinery of the chimes was deranged, the wire attached to it melted or burnt to small pieces, and scare any part of the church escaped injury". The sulphurous atmosphere left in the church after the strike made it difficult for the sexton to remain long in the building. The lightning conductor attached to the weathervane was blamed for carrying the lightning into the church itself.

By 1830 the church's future was in doubt. A report in the 'Exeter Flying Post' on 25 February announced that divine service had been suspended because of the "insecure state of St Edmund's Church".

A meeting of the parishioners had been called by the rector "to consider the best means for reinstating it by a new edifice". On Thursday 06 September 1832 the 'Post' claimed that "the demolition of the Church of St Edmund on the Bridge in this city...was commenced on Monday morning". The same paper announced on 25 July 1833 that "We notice with much satisfaction the progress towards a finish of the New Church of St Edmund's on the Bridge - to that part of our city it will be a great ornament". If only.

Beatrix Cresswell in her 1908 book on Exeter's parish churches stated that "the present building had the misfortune to be erected in 1833, therefore, as a building, there is nothing more to be said for it". Perhaps that's a little unkind. I think the almost contemporary rebuilding of Holy Trinity resulted in a much poorer structure. At least the rebuilt St Edmund's above left had the look of Exeter's other remaining medieval parish churches, even if it had been stripped of nearly all of its historical fabric.

The postcard view above shows St Edmund's Church as it appeared at the beginning of the 20th century looking towards the city (the tower of St Mary Steps can just be seen amongst the rooftops in the background). The cityscape here remained little changed until the 1960s. With the creation of the new Exe Bridge in the 1770s part of the medieval bridge continued to be used as Edmund Street. The bridge was widened in 1854. The work involved in widening it can be seen in the stonework at the bottom of the photograph. This was all removed when the bridge was excavated in the 1960s, returning the structure back to its medieval form.

The aerial photograph below from c1930 shows part of the West Quarter and the leats of Exe Island. The Custom House is bottom right. St Edmund's Church is highlighted in red. Almost none of the buildings shown now survive. Many were swept away as part of slum clearances in the 1930s but the majority were demolished in the 1960s and 1970s during the creation of the inner bypass. The area today is completely unrecognisable. Similar devastation occurred outside the South Gate.

The new church was designed by the local architects of Cornish & Julian (Robert Cornish was also responsible for the Holy Trinity rebuild). A lot of the medieval material was recycled into the rebuilt structure. According to Cresswell, the tower was "in some measure retained, the top repaired with an ornamental parapet".  The galleries that extended down the sides of the old church were replaced with a single gallery at the west end. The old painted glass mentioned by Jenkins was gathered into the windows of the north wall.

According to Cresswell the old font had been left in a stone mason's yard and the one in the church was modern i.e. from the 1830s. The pulpit was fashioned from the 15th century remains of its predecessor. Cresswell also claimed that some "old and rather uncomfortable looking open benches" had been brought from the cathedral at the time of the restoration i.e. in the 1870s.

There were eight bells in the tower which, said Cresswell, "had a very pleasant tone". The old church had three bells in 1533 and five when it was demolished in 1832. The oldest bell that Cresswell saw was dated 1721 with four others dated 1731. Three others dated to 1833 and were installed when the church was rebuilt.

In 1881 the issue of how much of the medieval tower had been left standing resulted in some bickering between the rector of St Edmund's and the city council. In that year the late 17th century houses shown adjacent to the church tower in the photograph at the top of this post were demolished by the city council as part of a slum clearance. The rector wanted to know why the council wasn't prepared to pay for the repairs necessary to the wall of the tower where the house nearest to the tower once stood. He cited a precedent. In 1879 the city council had demolished No. 210 High Street, an early 17th century house that was next to Allhallows Church in Goldsmith Street, and had paid for repairs on the church's newly-exposed wall.

But the council were having none of it and informed the rector that "whereas in the case of Allhallows the house was built against the church, in St Edmund's the church was built against the house". The rector responded with a letter from the churchwardens which stated that "it was obvious that the original wall of the old church was not disturbed when the present church was built (some fifty years since) from the fact that the walls of the old houses still adhered to the west end, the reason doubtless being that to remove the wall would endanger the safety of the premises". The churchwardens also complained that two large beams that had supported the timber-framed houses had been left in the west wall of the church. The churchwardens were undoubtedly correct but it appears that the parishioners ended up paying for the repair work themselves.

The photograph above left shows the surviving west wall of the tower that was at the centre of the disagreement in 1881. Constructed largely from red Heavitree breccia with some random blocks of purple volcanic trap, it is almost certainly a surviving fragment from the medieval church of St Edmund. The remaining part of the tower's south wall, shown above right with the entrance doorway, dates to the rebuilding of 1833. The photo below shows the Edwardian Exe Bridge c1910 looking towards New Bridge Street and the city centre. New Bridge Street was created at the end of the 18th century and bypassed the route into Exeter from the west along the medieval Exe Bridge. The isolated tower of St Edmund's Church is visible to the right.

The church probably started to go downhill after the Georgian Exe Bridge was opened in the 1770s, although Jenkins claimed in 1806 that "the whole of the decorations and furniture in this small edifice is kept in perfect repair". It was effectively sidelined as New Bridge Street made for a much easier entry into the city from the west, and St Edmund's was always one of Exeter's smaller medieval parishes even before the new bridge was built. The church was last used for regular services in 1956 and was then partially damaged by fire in 1969. Although the damage wasn't irreparable, the construction of the inner bypass and the consequent demolition of almost every surrounding building resulted in St Edmund's own demolition in 1973 after nearly 800 years of use as a site of worship. What was believed to be the surviving portions of the medieval building were retained and left as a 'picturesque' ruin along with the remains of the old Exe Bridge now "incongruously sited on a roundabout" (Pevsner & Cherry).

Sources

Demolition at Magdalen Street & Holloway Street

The extended demolition of the South Gate area between 1962 and 1977 marked one of the most destructive phases in Exeter's 20th century history. Hardly a single bomb was dropped here during World War II and it largely escaped the catastrophic slum clearances of the pre-war years. The photograph left shows late Regency houses being demolished in Magdalen Street in 1964 © Express & Echo.

At South Gate the destruction of nearly all the historical structures in the area was a result of the inner bypass, a post-war ring road that now carves its way from the top of Sidwell Street, past South Gate, through the West Quarter and on towards Cowick Street and Alphington Street on the opposite side of the river. The scale of the destruction was immense as literally hundreds of pre-war townhouses, shops, courtyards, tenements, gardens and warehouses were bulldozed out of existence and replaced with what is now a multi-lane carriageway.

The clearance at South Gate alone involved the removal of much of Magdalen Street, most of Holloway Street, the whole of Quay Lane, a few surviving buildings at the bottom of South Street, and a large section of Exeter's city wall that had stood since the end of the second century AD. The Edwardian Exe Bridge, Alphington Street and Cowick Street fared little better.

What made the destruction at South Gate particularly unfortunate was its historical importance to the development of the city and the architectural significance of some of its buildings. Following the Exeter Blitz of 1942 it remained one of the Exeter's last intact historical cityscapes and a large number of the buildings dated to the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries. The photograph above shows the view into Magdalen Street from the bottom of South Street in 1960 © Express & Echo. Nearly all of the houses shown dated from between c1659 and c1720, some with later mid 19th century facades. The photograph below shows the same view today.

As with almost everywhere in Exeter, South Gate has a very long recorded history. Sometimes shortened simply to Southgate, the area was the name given to the junction of South Street, Holloway Street and Magdalen Street where they met outside the great South Gate, itself demolished in 1819. The earliest artifact ever found in the city was recovered at Magdalen Street: a 250,000 year-old flint hand axe. The top of Holloway Street was the site of a Roman legionary cremation cemetery in the 1st centry AD and the Roman road between Topsham and Exeter terminated here. Now a small, picturesque town some four miles from Exeter, Topsham was the Second Augustan Legion's supply base. This route still exists, divided into Topsham Road and Holloway Street. Used by thousands of people every day, it runs in a characteristically straight line between Exeter and Topsham.

Magdalen Street, another road that ended at the South Gate, may also be Roman in origin. The main Roman route from Exeter to Dorchester is known to have run through Heavitree, about a mile outside Exeter. This road probably led originally to the Roman city's East Gate but it's likely that it forked before reaching the city walls with a spur running along Magdalen Road, Magdalen Street and into Exeter at the South Gate. The fork in the road is still present where Heavitree Road splits at what is now Livery Dole.

The image above attempts to show how the Roman roads converged on Exeter in the 3rd century AD. The perimeter of the Roman city walls is highlighted in red. The Exeter-Topsham service road used by the Second Augustan Legion cAD60 is highlighted in orange. The main Roman road from Exeter to Dorchester, ending at the East Gate (2), is highlighted in purple. The spur that forked at what is now Livery Dole (3), which comprised Magdalen Road and Magdalen Street, and which terminated at the South Gate (1) is highlighted in yellow. Except where it was destroyed outside the South Gate in the 1960s and 1970s, and where Paris Street was rerouted following post-war reconstruction, the road plan has remained essentially unchanged.

The image left shows the exterior of the South Gate from Holloway Street in the early 19th century. Magdalen Street runs off to the right. Although the gatehouse was demolished in 1819 the three 17th century timber-framed buildings to the left survived until they were demolished in the 1960s. The narrow entrance into Quay Lane was down the side of the nearest of the three houses.

Another ancient route that led into the area outside the South Gate was Quay Lane, used for hundreds of years to bring goods up into the city from the Quay. Built over the city's in-filled defensive ditch, Quay Lane was lined with small houses that backed onto the city wall, the variety and charm of its townscape the product of centuries of gradual evolution. In c1300 the Greyfriars of Exeter moved their friary from its site at Bartholomew Street inside the city to a large area outside the city walls just south of Holloway Street. Dissolved during the Reformation, some of the friary buildings survived until they were demolished during the English Civil War. The houses on Quay Lane were built within the precinct of the old friary and two roads south of Holloway Street are still known today as Friars Walk and Friars Gate.

The South Gate itself formed one of the main entrances in and out of Exeter. In 1452 Henry VI began a Royal Progress that reached Exeter on 17 July. Accompanied by 300 dignitaries from the city, he was met at Livery Dole by the monks from the city's Greyfriars' priory and Dominican friary. The king and his entourage then processed along Magdalen Road, Magdalen Street and into the city at the monumental South Gate which had been adorned especially for the occasion. Braun and Hogenberg's 1587 map of Exeter above right shows that a small medieval suburb had built up outside the South Gate in Magdalen Street and Holloway Street. Nicholas Smith's mansion of Larkbeare is shown as is Quay Lane and what are probably some of the remaining buildings of the Franciscan friary in the field at the bottom.

In the autumn of 1645, during the English Civil War, the city's Royalist defenders deliberately razed around 80 houses on the south side of Exeter to clear the ground outside the South Gate and to have an improved field of view for cannon and muskets. Most of the houses outside the city walls in the South Gate area, including many in Magdalen Street and Holloway Street, were affected. In his book, 'Two Thousand Years in Exeter', published in 1960 before the 20th century demolition of the area began, Hoskins wrote that "there are a number of gabled houses of late seventeenth-century date in Magdalen Street and Holloway Street. These houses are those that were built again after the war was over to replace those that had been destroyed."

By the end of the 17th century many of the battle-scarred plots had new houses built upon them. One of these was a three-storey, brick-built mansion, constructed in Magdalen Street for Thomas Matthew in 1659. Another significant property was known as Magdalen House, built for Dr Michael Dicker in the first decades of the 18th century. There was also the Valiant Soldier, an inn rebuilt in 1651 which stood on the corner of Holloway Street and Magdalen Street and which was named after those who fought and died during the English Civil War, and the Red Lion inn, its courtyard and timber-framed walls sketched by John Gendell in the 1830s

Benjamin Donn's 1765 map of the city left clearly shows Magdalen Street, Holloway Street and Quay Lane as they converge at the South Gate. It also shows that by the mid 18th century the area had recovered from the damage inflicted during the English Civil War. The evocative drawing below © Exeter City Council by Richard Parker appears on an information panel associated with the site of the South Gate. The drawing shows the junction of South Street, Magdalen Street and Holloway Street c1800. Magdalen House, with a classical pediment at roof level, can be seen on the far right.

Exeter historian Jacqueline Warren left a vivid description of one small part of Magdalen Street prior to its demolition: "Another of these Jacobean houses had a cobbled passage to a court from which a flight of stone steps led to the front doors of two dwellings. This was Bowden's Place, and in its happy, simple design, it had incredible charm. Beyond the first court, and past a fine, early nineteenth century iron gate was another little courtyard where a hefty sandstone buttress held the lower portion of a slate-hung house. The narrow cob-wall passage of one of the houses led to an alley from which could be seen the slightly sagging ridges of original slate roofs. Eventually, through this enchanting maze, one coud reach Holloway Street". Following the pre-war slum clearances, the bomb damage of 1942 and the destructive post-war reconstruction, the post-English Civil War houses around Southgate were some of the oldest domestic buildings still standing in Exeter outside of the Cathedral Close.

The image left shows the 1905 Ordnance Survey map of Exeter overlaid onto an aerial view of the same area today with the following numbering: 1 Site of the South Gate, 2 Quay Lane, 3 Magdalen House, 4 42-46 Magdalen Street, 5 The Valiant Solider Inn, 6 Magdalen Street, 7 Holloway Street, 8 Nos. 71-73 Holloway Street, 9 Site of Franciscan Friary. The route of the city wall is highlighted in purple. The buildings destroyed as a direct consequence of the inner bypass, well over 200 in total, are highlighted in red. Quay Lane was completely demolished, even though the bypass ran nowhere near it, as was most of Magdalen Street. Holloway Street was similarly decimated.

The pre-war aerial view right shows Holloway Street in the foreground running up to the former site of the South Gate (marked with a red arrow) and merging almost without a break into South Street. It shows how densely built-up the area was at the beginning of the 20th century. The majority of the buildings north of the red arrow were destroyed in pre-war slum clearances or during World War Two. The majority of the buildings south of the red arrow were destroyed during the creation of the inner bypass.

The inner bypass was initiated as early as 1949. It was designed to intercept heavy traffic arriving at Exeter from the east and bypass it across the river. In 1950 work began on surveying the proposed route between the top of Sidwell Street and Exe Bridge. Construction didn't commence at Belmont Park near Sidwell Street until 1953 and by 1960 the bypass had reached as far as Magdalen Bridge. 1962 saw the demolition of the Valiant Soldier inn and work started on continuing the bypass from Holloway Street to Exe Bridge.  By 1965 the bypass was complete but work continued on creating a gyratory road system near to the old West of England Eye Infirmary. The last demolitions didn't take place at South Gate until 1977 by which time the road system achieved its present form.

The photograph above shows the view across the junction of Magdalen Street and Holloway Street in the 1940s. The three gabled houses to the right from c1680 are the same ones visible in the early 19th century depiction of the South Gate but with slightly altered facades. The very narrorw entrance into Quay Lane was to the left of the left-hand house.

In his book 'Conservation Today', published in 1989, David Pearce discusses the implementation of so-called Dangerous Structures Notices used by English city councils in the 1960s and 1970s to get rid of inconveniently sited old buildings: "Council-owned, council-neglected then council-condemned was all too frequently the fate of listed structures impeding redevelopment". The idea was that the local authority would purchase a building, willfully neglect it and then issue a DNS on the structure when it was deemed either structurally unsafe or unfit for habitation. As Pearce says, "Exeter swept away splendid seventeenth century merchants' houses as if vying with Bristol to disfigure itself". The photograph below © Express & Echo shows Magdalen Street in the early 1960s when demolition had started in Holloway Street (in the background). The Valiant Soldier inn had already been bulldozed.

Pearce continues: "A building does not need to be neglected for many years before grounds can be discovered for declaring it unsafe, or at the very least unfit for habitation. A classic case occurred in 1977 in Exeter where the city council condemned and destroyed seventeenth and eighteenth century listed houses in Magdalen Street, containing particularly rare plasterwork, which it had originally bought (and then neglected) in connection with what even the local newspaper called 'megolomaniac' traffic schemes". (Another property that suffered the same fate was Whipton Barton, a large 17th century farmhouse in Whipton village. The history of the site dated back to the Domesday survey. Whipton Barton was purchased by the city council in the 1950s, left to fall into disrepair and, despite being a listed building, was demolished in the early 1960s. A block of flats, known as Rennes House, was built on the site.)

The photograph above shows Nos. 42-46 Magdalen Street in 1975. Purchased by the city council they were allowed to rot before being demolished. The late Georgian facade of Nos. 44-46 concealed the mid 17th century brick mansion of John Matthew, a fact that was only discovered when the property was being demolished.

The specific buildings mentioned by David Pearce were Magdalen House and Nos. 42-46 Magdalen Street, all of which were Grade II listed structures. (Magdalen House was listed in 1953. Nos. 42-46 Magdalen Street were listed in 1974. They were all demolished just three years later.) It is shocking to realise that these particular buildings, on the north side of Magdalen Street, did not impede in any way the new road system. The current pavement is on the same alignment as it was before the creation of the inner bypass and where the houses once stood is just a big patch of grass in front of the modern Southgate hotel.

As Jacqueline Warren states, after 1974 Magdalen House "seemed safe, and it has never really been made clear why it was not properly looked after; why it was demolished instead of restored". Other important buildings suffered the same fate. No. 36 Holloway Street, known as Holloway House, was granted Grade II listed status in 1953. It was a large brick townhouse built at the end of the 17th century, its three-storey facade set back from the road. It was demolished in 1980. No. 35 Holloway Street dated to 1797 and was listed in 1973. It too was demolished. Nos. 48-56 Holloway Street were also Grade II listed in 1973. These were mid-19th century houses with stucco facades and an unusual string course and cornice that curved up the face of the houses following the slope on which the houses were built. These too were demolished. The west side of Holloway Street was almost completely obliterated. Nearly 400 metres of pre-war frontages were torn down leaving just three, traffic-blighted examples near the top to indicate what has been lost. (The three survivors on the west side are Nos. 71-73 Holloway Street, all Grade II listed, shown above and as 8 on the Ordnance Survey aerial view.) The east side fared little better with 'only' around 200 metres of pre-war frontages being demolished.

Not only were most of the affected buildings in Holloway Street and Magdalen Street destroyed without any archaeological or architectural record, but a 30 metre stretch of the Roman city wall was hacked down to ground level by council workmen using pickaxes. As a Scheduled Ancient Monument the city wall was allegedly protected by law but the council applied to the Ministry of Works for permission to demolish it and permission was granted (another large section was destroyed at Eastgate during the post-war reconstruction). The houses in Quay Lane, another area that had little to do with the creation of the inner bypass, were also destroyed. The photograph above shows the large section of the city wall that was demolished to accomodate the inner bypass, now spanned by a pedestrian footbridge. The photograph below shows the view towards the Magdalen Street-Holloway Street junction today.

Changes in legislation during the 1980s made it more difficult for local authorities to destroy listed buildings but, for Exeter at least, it was too late as the obliteration of most of the city's historical fabric was complete. The pre-war slum clearances in Paul Street, Frog Street, Smythen Street, Preston Street and Stepcote Hill, the bombing in 1942 of the High Street, South Street, Bedford Circus and Sidwell Street, the post-war removal of most of the standing structures in the bomb-affected areas, the creation of the post-war inner ring road, the installation of the flood defence system in the 1960s, the rebuilding of the Exe Bridges at Cowick Street and Exe Island, and the creation of the sprawling Guildhall Shopping Centre at North Street, Goldsmith Street and Waterbeer Street has resulted in the wholesale destruction of Exeter as a visually historic city.

The loss of life caused by the Exeter Blitz shouldn't be forgotten but it seems strange that so much emphasis is placed on the physical damage wrought upon the city by German bombers in 1942 when the majority of the architectural losses over the course of the 20th century have been entirely self-inflicted.

Even some of those buildings which now survive, feted as important parts of the city's architectural heritage, only escaped through the post-war endeavors of protestors. For example, in the 1960s and 1970s the city council actively campaigned for the total demolition of the Higher Market in Queen Street, the late Regency houses in Bartholomew West, and the 16th and 17th century houses at No. 226 and No. 227 High Street. (The Higher Market was partially demolished anyway and Nos. 226 and 227 only exist today as shallow facades, their ground floors completely gutted.)

In the city's Royal Albert Memorial Museum is a display of medieval, Tudor and Jacobean metal door fittings that were salvaged from the ashes of buildings destroyed in 1942. These fittings are accompanied by an information panel that makes the bizarre assertion that "after so much destruction people were determined to look after the historic buildings that remained".

There are of course instances of the post-war city council salvaging historical buildings e.g. the remaining fragment of old Larkbeare House further down Holloway Street, the much-publicised 'House That Moved' (moved to the edge of the inner bypass) or, more recently, the restoration of Cricklepit Mill, but the extent of the demolition that took place around Exeter following World War Two is quite at odds with the museum's bold claim. It was only exceptional conservation cases that were considered to be of any importance. Although the general background noise of lesser streets and perhaps lesser buildings provided context, coherence and visual proof of organic development over centuries it was, unfortunately, regarded as expendable.

Two other issues deserve mention. One is Exeter's over-burdened road system. The inner bypass was completed in the 1970s when both car ownership and the population of the city were much lower. I'm sure it was lovely to speed around the semi-empty new road system in the early 1970s but anyone who has queued along Alphington Road, Topsham Road, Holloway Street, Western Way, Magdalen Street or Cowick Street will understand that the inner bypass now suffers from major gridlock at key times of the day. The situation will only become worse given the thousands of new houses that are being thrown up around the city's outskirts. It seems all that demolition only provided a temporary solution to what is becoming an increasingly big problem.

The other issue is the poor architecture that was built in the South Gate area following the creation of the road system. These squat blocks of flats have no redeeming features other than their lack of verticality (although at least if you're in it you don't have to look at it.) Like so much of Exeter's post-war architecture, they wouldn't appear out of place on an industrial estate. What was once the great historical approach into the city is today a barren wasteland of roads, junctions, roundabouts and traffic lights.

Sources

The Destruction of Sun Street

As far as I know not a single photograph or illustration exists which shows Sun Street prior to the destruction of its buildings in 1942. The image left is a detail from Hedgeland's early 19th century model of Exeter. The accuracy of the individual houses is questionable but at least it gives some idea of the character of the street c1800. The properties which fronted onto Sun Street are highlighted in red. The continuation into Preston Street is at the top and the exit into South Street is at the bottom.

In reality Sun Street was little more than an extension of Preston Street. It exited into South Street at a point almost opposite Bear Street. Like Preston Street, Sun Street was probably late Anglo-Saxon in origin. The two streets formed a long route up into the city centre from West Street and the early industrial district beyond the city walls on Exe Island. At some point the upper 270ft (80m) of Preston Street became known as a named route in its own right and Sun Street was born. A deed of 1566 relating to Grendon's Almshouses refers to Sun Street as 'Bellewtere Gate' and Benjamin Donn's 1765 map of Exeter shows that Sun Street was formerly called Billiter Lane.

Hoskins wrote that "the meaning of Billiter is uncertain but it may derive from billet, "a note" - hence "writers' lane", where the medieval scriveners congregated". I wonder if there wasn't another source for the unusual name. 'Belyetere' is a Middle English word for a bell founder. Excavations between 1977 and 1978 at Mermaid Yard, almost at the conjunction between Preston Street and Sun Street, uncovered a waste dump including fragmentary clay-loam moulds in which bells were cast in the late medieval period. No structural evidence was found but it's possible that it was the site of Robert Norton's bell foundry. Norton was made a freeman of the city of Exeter in 1423 and he was still manufacturing bells in the 1440s. One of them hangs in the bell turret at the little church of St Pancras in the Guildhall Shopping Centre.

By the 1830s 'Billiter Lane' had largely given way to 'Sun Street'. On the north side of Sun Street stood the Sun Inn, from which the street derived its new name. According to Hoskins the Sun Inn had been in existence since the 1690s although an advertisement from 1855 claimed that there had only been a successful business on the site since c1810. The inn had a bar, bar parlour, tap room, kitchen, club room, drawing room, five bedrooms and a large cellar. A very narrow passageway led down the side of the inn into Guinea Street. The image right shows a detail from 1905 map of Exeter overlaid onto a modern aerial view of the same area. The Sun Inn was the largest plot fronting onto the street, the passageway running north to Guinea Street clearly visible on the 1905 plan.

The Sun Inn was the site of an early attempt to establish a trade union in Exeter. According to Hoskins again, on 15 January 1834 two men from London planned to hold a secret meeting at the Sun Inn. Around sixty Exeter workers, mostly bricklayers and masons, assembled at the inn where they were spied upon by a policeman who had bored a hole through a partition wall. Once the ceremony initiating new members had begun, the policeman ran to the Guildhall and alerted the rest of the police force. They descended en masse to the Sun Inn and, after much shoving against bolted doors, eventually arrested forty men. They were taken to the Guildhall where the mayor and an alderman were waiting for them. Eventually all but 15 were released and the rest were bound over and set free, a noticeable difference in comparison with the fate of the Tolpuddle Martyrs who, just seven years previously, had been deported to Australia for committing a similar 'crime'.

The detail from a postcard c1900 left is the closest I've seen to anything depicting Sun Street. It actually shows the view looking down South Street but the entrance into Sun Street can be glimpsed disappearing off to the right. It appears that the corner property was removed in the 19th century perhaps to widen the entrance into Sun Street. The 1876 Ordnance Survey map clearly reveals that at least one of the corner plot buildings had been demolished. In the postcard view this plot is occupied by a single-storey shop adjacent to its jettied timber-framed neighbour.

With no surviving photographs, illustrations, archaeological reports or descriptions of its buildings, it is impossible to say what was lost when the entire street was destroyed during the bombing raid of 04 May 1942. The Sun Inn had ceased to be a public house by 1917 although the building itself survived until 1942, but absence of evidence shouldn't be taken as evidence of absence. The more one reads about pre-war Exeter the more apparent it becomes that vast amounts of the medieval and early post-medieval city survived into the 20th century, often buried beneath later alterations. The Black Lions Inn on South Street, whose yard was formerly accessed via Sun Street, is one such example. A Georgian house from 1754 which stood behind houses on Sun Street is another. It was built upon medieval cellars and yet nothing is known about it as it too was destroyed in 1942 before it could be recorded.

Like George Street, Milk Street and part of Guinea Street, the route of Sun Street was obliterated during the reconstruction of the area in the 1950s. There is now no indication above ground that the street ever existed. The photograph below shows South Street today. The entrance into Sun Street is somewhere beneath one of the shops to the far left.

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A 14th Century House at No. 8, Milk Street

Until its destruction in 1942 No. 8 in Milk Street was one of the oldest surviving domestic buildings in Exeter, despite being much-altered in the intervening centuries. (The so-called 'Norman House' in Preston Street, damaged in 1942 and demolished soon after, probably dated to no earlier than the 15th century).

No. 8, Milk Street is highlighted in red on the 1905 street plan of the city left, overlaid onto a modern aerial view of the same area. The house on Milk Street was built c1320 on a very simple plan. It was only two-storeys high and one room wide, with a cellar beneath. Only half of the cellar was actually below ground and the house was entered via steps from Milk Street. Originally with a timber-framed facade, the other walls were built from the purple volcanic trap quarried at Rougemont.

The main entrance from Milk Street opened directly into the hall with a second room at the rear. Inset into the corner of the hall, within the very thick north wall, was a garderobe which was ventilated by a slit window that looked out into Milk Street. The garderobe would've emptied directly onto the street! There was also an early-14th century fireplace in the hall. The room at the rear had a surviving two-light window and in one of the corners were the remains of a stone spiral staircase which would've led up to the first-floor chambers, one of which also contained a medieval fireplace. A narrow alley at the back of the house gave access into George Street. This alley is highlighted in purple on the image top.

And that's it. Little else is known about the building. It appears to have remained undiscovered until Milk Street and the surrounding area were badly damaged during the Exeter Blitz of 04 May 1942. As the rest of the street burned the tough volcanic rock of the walls of No. 8 remained standing. Fortunately the architectural historian, Arthur Everett, surveyed the building in the aftermath of the bombing raid. (He also recorded the remains of the Anglo-Saxon church revealed by the bombing in nearby George Street.) The walls of No. 8, Milk Street, which predated the ravages of the Black Death, were subsequently demolished as part of the post-war reconstruction and the site is now part of a car park below. No. 8 stood approximately where the sign with the arrow is today.

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No. 15, Frog Street

Despite its small size and apparent insignificance, No. 15 in Frog Street left was one of the Exeter's historically interesting buildings, a lone survivor and a unique example of its type.

Situated just beyond the city walls and the West Gate, and on the edge of the industrial area known as Exe Island, Frog Street had largely retained its medieval appearance late into the 19th century, with gable-ended, timber-framed houses from the 1400s and 1500s lining both sides of the narrow route, their upper floors oversailing the street below.

The street's picturesque character was gradually eroded through sporadic demolitions in the first three decades of the 20th century until, in 1961, just two of the street's historical properties remained. One stood on the corner of Frog Street and Edmund Street. A small mid-15th century merchant's house, it was salvaged and gained some local fame as "The House that Moved" when it was transported on wheels into a new location on West Street. No. 15 Frog Street wasn't so fortunate.

What made it a unique survivor was its layout. Unlike the other timber-framed houses that survived in Exeter into the 1960s, No. 15 was built with its roof parallel with the street. Derek Portman in his book 'Exeter Houses 1400-1700' suggests a plausible explanation for why this layout was less commonly seen in the city centre. The importance of having street frontage in the commercial centre of Exeter was paramount. It was therefore customary to have long, thin plots of land (burgage plots) at right angles to the street with narrow shop fronts, thereby maximising the number of properties that could be built on any given thoroughfare.

Frog Street's location beyond the city walls meant that there was simply more space to build and so wider street frontages were both possible and desirable. According to Portman "only one building of this kind, No. 15 Frog Street, remained to be surveyed". The photograph right shows the entrance into Frog Street from Edmund Street c1940 with No. 15 highlighted in red. The white timber-framed property on the right, demolished c1950, appears to have had a similar layout to No. 15.

No. 15 was built c1570 and was typical of the sort of house occupied perhaps by a successful late-Elizabethan tradesman. It was timber-framed and was built on two floors with stone party walls at either end (although at some point the western wall had been rebuilt in brick). Access into the property was originally through a side passageway that ran underneath the first floor and out into a courtyard at the rear. Entry into the house itself was via a doorway in this passageway. On the ground floor was a single large room with a fireplace in the eastern wall. The first floor was divided into two rooms by a studded partition which, according to Portman, was "completely preserved and visible". The 16th century roof structure had also survived with little alteration. The property had been extended at the back, probably in the late 18th century, but the overall plan of the Tudor building was "easily discernible".

Unfortunately Frog Street was in the firing line of the council's inner bypass road system, first proposed by Thomas Sharp in 1945. As the bypass edged its way towards the river in the late 1950s and 1960s dozens of historical properties were demolished, including a large number of mid-17th century houses at the Southgate, the city's earliest brick-built house on Magdalen Street and Dr Dicker's early-18th century mansion. No. 16 Edmund Street was saved from destruction and moved, but No. 15 Frog Street was to have no such reprieve and in the summer of 1961 it was torn down.

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The Destruction of Guinea Street

Another of Exeter's city centre streets and another story involving the complete loss of a historical cityscape. The watercolour above is a rare depiction of Guinea Street c1900, looking towards its junction with South Street. The spire of the then recently rebuilt church of St Mary Major is in the background. To the left is the monumental main facade of Charles Fowler's Lower Market, the street still lined with a number of timber-frame properties from the 1600s and 1700s. Nothing remains today of any of the buildings shown. The map below right shows Guinea Street and the surrounding area c1900, at about the same time that the watercolour was executed. The Lower Market is clearly visible as is Milk Street, with its little obelisk and public square, as well as Sun Street and the entrance from South Street into Guinea Street. Very narrow lanes led off into semi-hidden places like Rowe's Court or provided shortcuts into the surrounding streets. The parts of the map highlighted in red show areas that were affected during World War Two and which have since been rebuilt.

The street's name is recorded in 1320 as 'Gennestrete', in 1421 as 'Gyne Stret' and in 1610 as 'Gennystrete'. It's thought that 'Guinea' is derived from 'ginnel', a word for a narrow alley or passageway that is still used in some Northern dialects and which is believed to originate in Old Norse. Situated off South Street and sandwiched between George Street and Sun Street, Guinea Street was part of Exeter's sprawling West Quarter, one of the city's most significant residential and commercial districts throughout the Middle Ages. Before that the area covered by Guinea Street had been within the footprint of the mid-1st century Roman legionary fortress, later transformed into a civitas cAD 80. A "mass of masonry" from a Roman building was discovered in October 1838 when new curb stones were laid in Guinea Street and various pieces of Roman pottery and coins were unearthed throughout the 19th century. It's now thought that the masonry discovered both then and since, as well as the remains of tessellated and concrete floors, belonged to buildings associated with the Roman public bath complex sited near the present-day Deanery on the other side of South Street.

A quarter of the street was demolished in 1835 for the construction of the Lower Market. The market's 127ft (39m) Guinea Street facade above would've dominated the narrow medieval street in much the same way that the Higher Market's rear facade towered over Goldsmith Street. The market was set back from the original line of the street frontages it replaced, doubling the width of Guinea Street in the immediate area outside the market itself but leaving the portion that exited onto South Street intact, an effect that can easily be seen in the watercolour view at the top of this post. No great historical events occurred in Guinea Street and apart from the Lower Market it's unlikely that many great buildings were ever erected there, but for centuries it had witnessed those scenes of everyday life that are the common currency of human experience, from the time of the Romans up until the present day.

For example, on 29 January 1807 a tremendous storm of hurricane-like proportions descended on the city, blowing several chimneys down onto the roof of the Royal Oak inn on Guinea Street, destroying the roof and killing a man named Humphreys, "a musician in the band belonging to the Montgomery Militia" who was in a room on the ground floor; on 14 October 1838 Julia Lamerton, the wife of a builder, died in Guinea Street and was remembered as "an affectionate and tender mother"; in December 1844 "Mr Morris Thurston of Guinea Street" died at his house having reached the incredible age of 108 years-old and who never allowed anyone inside his house for 60 years ; in 1856 John Webster was charged with leaving a waggon and two horses in Guinea Street and was fined 1 shilling; on 21 February 1859 Mary Smale was sent to prison for a week for "using abusive language in Guinea Street"; in September 1868 firemen had to put out a fire that was "raging in an uninhabited house in the lane leading from Sun Street to Guinea Street" and on 18 January 1874 a daughter was born to Mr and Mrs Chapple, etc. etc. People lived and worked and died in Guinea Street as they had for hundreds of years.

In the 19th century alone there existed in Guinea Street the Golden Lion Inn, the Royal Oak, the New Market Inn and the Pestle and Mortar, of dubious repute, and the premises of JT Burgess & Son, an ironmongers who were well-known to local poultry farmers and bee-keepers. The company of Burgess & Son had existed in Guinea Street for many years before its premises were destroyed in 1942. (The shop they operated from is visible to the right in the watercolour at the top of this post.)

On 04 May 1942 Exeter was blitzed as a reprisal for the RAF's attack on the Hanseatic port of Lübeck in Germany and Guinea Street was completely destroyed, along with much of the surrounding area. Only the outer walls of the Lower Market remained standing, being made of stone, until they were foolishly demolished in the early 1960s. The photograph above right © Express & Echo shows Guinea Street, highlighted in red, several months after the devastating air-raid, the remains of one of the corner towers of the Lower Market clearly visible, pedestrians still walking on the old street's surviving pavements. Part of South Street is in the foreground, a faint trace of the very narrow George Street just discernible to the far right, running parallel with Guinea Street.

It's impossible to say exactly what was lost in Guinea Street. Like much of the city at the time of the Second World War, no detailed survey had been undertaken of the street's buildings at the time of their destruction. The bombing uncovered a previously hidden 14th century building in nearby Milk Street so it's likely that properties of similar antiquity had survived in Guinea Street up until 1942.

The area was thoroughly redeveloped in the post-war period, although at least in Guinea Street the basic medieval street plan was almost retained intact. Before 1942 the street had a slight bend in it but after the war this was straightened out and what had been the junction with South Street was reduced to a short covered pedestrian passage above left. Now the eastern end of the street terminates visually with the backs of the post-war buildings on South Street.

The real problem is the extremely poor quality of the post-war architecture. The area once occupied by the Lower Market is now an NCP car park. Brick-built and utilitarian, it has no redeeming features at all. The same can be said of the opposite side of the street, rebuilt in a style that is now common across much of the city centre: flat roofs and aluminium window frames randomly inserted into low-grade brick facades. The same type of building can be seen in long stretches of South Street, Paris Street, Sidwell Street, George Street, James Street, Market Street, Mary Arches Street, Bampfylde Street, Bude Street, Summerland Street, Verney Street and Cheeke Street. Anyone familiar with the Marsh Barton industrial estate on the outskirts of the city will recognise the style instantly.

The sad story of Guinea Street has been repeated across Exeter throughout the 20th century, either as a consequence of war or as the result of deliberate demolition, and its effect on the city's historical landscape has been disastrous. Comparing the photograph below with the watercolour at the top of this post, both from the same perspective, illustrates better than any words the sort of losses that Exeter has incurred over the course of the 20th century.

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The Proposed Demolition of No. 30, Smythen Street

Back in October last year I wrote a post about Smythen Street, once one of Exeter's most important medieval routes. Apart from a medieval fireplace hanging halfway up the wall of a late-19th century warehouse I was unaware that anything of historical interest still existed in the street, much of which was torn down between 1930 and the 1960s.

But it seems that one building older than the late 19th century does indeed survive and has recently been threatened with almost total demolition. The house in question was formerly known as No. 30 Smythen Street and can be found at the back of Nos. 102-104 Fore Street. Part of it is visible in the photograph left and below, facing onto the grot of modern-day Smythen Street, an admittedly unprepossessing facade spanning three floors with a partially slate-hung gable end with a further collection of associated buildings at the rear, not visible from the street itself.

About ten years ago the building was investigated by the Exeter Archaeology Unit [part of Exeter City Council, the much-valued EAU has recently been axed as part of the city council's cutbacks after 40 years in existence]. At the time of the EAU's investigation the building was being repaired with the aid of a grant and the EAU's findings revealed that parts of No. 30 date back to the 15th or 16th centuries, probably a unique fragment of the collection of medieval buildings known as Butchers Row, most of which were demolished in the 1830s to build the Lower Market. The core of the building is a medieval merchant shop, rebuilt above first floor level in the late 18th century and remodelled again in the 19th century.

Incredibly, a planning application was recently made to the city council seeking the almost complete demolition of the building to enable the construction of "residential units". An organisation known as the Devon Buildings Group lodged an objection to the plans. The following statement comes from the DBG's website:

"The DBG objected to this application as it involved the almost complete removal of a much repaired but extremely historic 15th or 16th century building at the rear of the development facing onto Smythen Street. This building is included within the Exeter Local List of buildings of historic interest. The replacement building was in an entirely modern idiom. We believed that the City Council had taken on board our objections and, although we were given no opportunity to see them, understood that revised plans had addressed the conservation issues. In fact these revised plans, although incorporating internally some of the historic features which were previously to be destroyed, still completely remove the existing street elevation of the building which was carefully reconstructed in 1999 following a detailed analysis of its historic importance by Exeter Archaeology. Moreover we understand that this reconstruction was actually grant aided under the Conservation Area Partnership shared by English Heritage and the Council! We strongly regret another development which will reduce the historic quality of the conservation area and the city."

The statement is dated April 2011. It seems unbelievable that the council would even consider allowing the building to be altered, let alone demolished, especially given the paucity of historic buildings in Exeter's old West Quarter (or the city centre generally for that matter). The council's own Exeter Local Plan Policy C3 states that alterations and extensions which harm the architectural or historic value of the building will not be permitted. The revised plans would apparently retain the "original basement and ground floor footprint", whatever that means, and the Heavitree stone walls would also remain along with some roof trusses. Despite the stipulations of the Local Plan Policy, it seems likely that the development will be given the green light by the council's planning department and much of the building will be demolished, including the Smythen Street facade, the remnants subsumed into a completely new structure.

If the Devon Buildings Group hadn't intervened then it's possible that everything would've just been bulldozed out of existence. (Three late-Georgian brick-built townhouses in Sidwell Street, Nos. 70-73, are also currently under threat of demolition, some of the last pre-war survivors in a street almost completely destroyed by the Baedeker Raid in 1942 and by massive post-war demolition. There have been a number of objections made by individuals and organisations, including English Heritage, and despite initially allowing the demolition of the buildings, the city council has been forced to reconsider. A decision is currently pending.) An update on the fate of No. 30, Smythen Street will be posted when more is known.