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.

Sources

The South Gate, South Street

The image left attempts to give some idea of how the exterior of Exeter's South Gate might've appeared today had it not been demolished in 1819. Located at the end of South Street, the South Gate was the main entrance into the city for nearly 1700 years.

Built by the Romans, altered by the Saxons and rebuilt by the Normans, the gate acquired its final form in the Late Middle Ages and remained little altered until it was pulled down at the beginning of the 19th century.

The first Roman gatehouse on the site was built c140 AD, a product of the transformation of Isca Dumnoniorum from a former military fortress into a civilian settlement. As the population had increased the perimeter of the settlement was extended outwards to cover the area still bounded by the city walls. A defensive ditch with an earthen bank topped by a wooden palisade was constructed around the newly-enlarged civitas. The Roman South Gate would've been part of this expansion and was originally built of wood. (Timber from this earliest incarnation of the South Gate was excavated in February 1989.) In c180 AD the wooden palisade and bank were replaced with a thick stone wall, parts of which can still be seen today, and the South Gate was rebuilt in stone at the same time.

The aerial view of Exeter right shows the circuit of the Roman and medieval city walls highlighted in purple (missing sections are highlighted in red). No. 2 marks the former location of the South Gate. South Street can clearly be seen heading towards the city centre where it meets Fore Street, North Street and the High Street at the ancient crossroad known as the Carfoix.

The Roman South Gate is the only one of Exeter's Roman gatehouses for which archaeological evidence has been found and its remains still lie beneath the modern road. The stone gatehouse consisted of two tall square towers flanking a central entrance. It was about 55ft (17m) wide, including both towers. Unfortunately very little is known about Exeter during the so-called Dark Ages, but the South Gate, along with the city walls, must've remained standing after the decline of the Roman administration of Britain in the early 5th century. When Alfred the Great refortified Exeter between 880 and 895, one of the measures taken to improve security probably included rebuilding the South Gate.

(The late medieval South Gate is shown in Hogenburg's 1587 map of Exeter left. The crenellated wall with an archway is presumably the priest's house projecting over the street from the tower of Holy Trinity church.)

Christopher Hendersen in his 2001 paper 'The Development of the South Gate of Exeter and its Role in the City Defences' believed that the Anglo-Saxon gate was probably constructed primarily of timber but also included some "elements" of the old Roman gate that were still standing some 600 years after it had first been built. Hendersen also believed that the late 9th century gatehouse was itself probably rebuilt again, this time in stone, during the 11th century, either just before or just after the Norman Conquest.

For some reason, perhaps French raids on the south coast of England, the South Gate received a massive overhaul between 1410 and 1420, transforming the earlier structure into what Hoskins called "one of the most impressive things of its kind in England". Like the outer face of the East Gate, the new South Gate was also probably built of the extremely durable grey/purple volcanic trap quarried from a variety of sites around Exeter. The early 15th century South Gate consisted of a bastion in the form of a rectangular block. The rear of the block lay flush with the line of the city wall and projected outwards over the old town ditch. The block was flanked on either side by huge drum towers, each tower being of four storeys and at least 50ft high. There was a drawbridge set into the carriageway and deep ditches ran away on either side.

A central passageway some 16ft (5m) tall, the interior of which was constructed with rib vaulting, ran through the centre of the bastion and a niche on the outer face contained a statue. The exterior face also had arrow slits and carved shields set into square stone plaques. The towers were subdivided into separate rooms and there were also chambers in the part of the gatehouse that spanned the central passageway. When the Tudor antiquarian, John Leland, visited Exeter in 1542 he believed that the South Gate was "the strongest" of the city's four main medieval gatehouses although the East Gate was perhaps larger.

Alexander Jenkins left an eyewitness description of the South Gate as it appeared in 1806: "The gate is a massy [massive] building of hewn stone. The entrance from the suburbs is through a lofty pointed arch, flanked by circular towers, over the gateway is a niche, where lately stood a mutilated statue in a magisterial robe; this front is likewise decorated with angels, supporting the Royal and City arms; the interior arch of the gateway from its semi-circular form, appears of Saxon construction, and is probably some remains of the ancient gate".

The image above is one of the few surviving depictions of the interior elevation of the early 15th century rebuilding. This view was obscured for centuries by the priest's house of Holy Trinity church which spanned South Street almost directly behind the gate. The drawing was executed in the very short space of time between the demolition of the priest's house and the gatehouse itself. The location of what was probably part of the side wall of the priest's house is highlighted in purple. The semi-circular inner archway of the gatehouse is clearly visible. The north wall had stone mullion windows with what looks like cusped tracery. The upper chambers could be accessed from the top of the city walls via a doorway. The debris on the ground to the left is demolition rubble from the church and the priest's house.

The fact that the exterior arch was pointed and the interior arch was semi-circular strongly suggests that the gatehouse built between 1410 and 1420 also retained elements of a much earlier structure. The disparity between the two styles of arch was noted in the 1720s by the English antiquarian William Stukeley. He wrote that "one arch of South-gate seems to be Roman", a surviving component of the gatehouse built one-and-a-half thousand years earlier.

The idea that the interior arch of the late medieval South Gate was part of the original Roman building has been banded around ever since. As late as 1971 Aileen Fox wrote that "it is possible that the round arch that is shown on the inside of the South Gate in early nineteenth century prints was a Roman survival". Wacher went further in 1975 when he stated that the arch "almost certainly" dated to the Roman period. A partial excavation of the site in 1992 indicated that parts of the Roman gatehouse had been demolished by c1200. A small guide to the city walls, written in association with the Exeter Archaeology unit and published in 1998 maintained that "the archway was probably Roman". Chris Hendersen, in the above-mentioned paper of 2001, supported Jenkins' belief that the archway was probably late Saxon or early Norman and dated to the 11th century. Unfortunately, now the South Gate no longer exists, it's not possible to say categorically whether the arch was Roman or Saxo-Norman in date, although the latter seems most likely.

Chris Hendersen described the process whereby the Roman/Saxo-Norman arch at the South Gate might've been retained. Before it was rebuilt in the early 15th century, the exterior face of the South Gate was flush with the city wall and didn't project out from the city as it did after 1420. Following the construction of the bastion and the two flanking towers, what was once the exterior arch of the Saxo-Norman gatehouse became the interior arch of the early 15th century gatehouse.

It probably didn't seem worth rebuilding a semi-circular arch that was being protected by the tremendous strength of the new outwork. This is perhaps why the new exterior arch was a pointed Gothic arch in keeping with the 15th century and yet the interior remained as an old-fashioned semi-circular arch, familiar to the Romans, Saxons and Normans. Two very similar archways to that which has prompted so much discussion still exist in Exeter at the gatehouse of Rougemont Castle above left. The two castle arches of c1068 are constructed from white sandstone. The interior arch at the South Gate was similar in appearance. The general colour scheme of the castle gatehouse, with its contrast between the white dressed stone of the arches and the purple volcanic trap of the walls, is also very reminiscent of what would've been the colouring of the South Gate.

Another uncertainty surrounding the architecture of the South Gate was the close proximity of the house used by the priest of Holy Trinity church. The church was sited just within the city walls, almost adjacent to the South Gate itself. Jenkins complained in 1806 that the South Gate and the church's bell tower constricted the flow of traffic in and out of Exeter, a situation "rendered still worse by an arched building adjoining the tower, once the habitation of the Priest, but now of the Sexton". An 1853 article by William Harding also refers to this property. Harding cites a document relating to the parish of Holy Trinity dated 18 May 1615 which, according to him, "mentions also the Parsonage House, which was built over the king's high way; the entrance to which was by a Gothic door, forming an inconvenient projection into the street".

This structure, with a pointed gable roof, is shown in the drawing above right. The arch of the South Gate itself can just be seen in the distance. The few surviving images of the priest's house suggest that it too had semi-circular arches but it was quite separate from the South Gate as a gap existed between the front wall of the priest's house and the back wall of the South Gate itself although the two were built of a similar material. In fact, prior to 1819, anyone walking down South Street would've had their view of the South Gate almost completely obscured by the presence of the overarching priest's house.

The South Gate and the priest's house were accurately depicted by Caleb Hedgeland on his early 19th century model of the city, a detail of which is shown left. The early 15th century reconstruction of the South Gate is highlighted in red. The priest's house is highlighted in purple connected directly to the church of Holy Trinity. Holy Trinity was itself remodelled around the same time that the South Gate was rebuilt. Was the priest's house originally part of the South Gate and only later used by the priests? Was it constructed at the same time or was it part of an earlier building? Unfortunately I can't find out much else about it.

In c1600 the roof of the South Gate was strengthened to take guns and the height of the gate raised, but apart from these slight alterations the South Gate remained unchanged until the beginning of the 19th century. From the 16th century onwards the gatehouse was used as the city prison. The prison reformer, James Neild, visited the South Gate prison in 1806 and recorded that "it consists, amongst others, of two rooms in the Keeper's house called the Long Room and the Shoe".

According to Neild, the Shoe received its name from a shoe that was hung by the prisoners from a length of string and suspended from "the iron-grated window towards the street". The idea was that charitable passers-by would put a small amount of money into the shoe (hence the phrase "living on a shoestring"). Neild recorded that the Shoe was used by debtors that "bring their own beds and pay six-pence per week". The image right is an early 20th century postcard depicting a fictional view of prisoners lowering a shoe to pedestrians. The artist has shown the prisoners as being incarcerated in the priest's house of Holy Trinity rather than the South Gate.

The Long Room was used by the debtors for exercise, there being no courtyard. There were nine other rooms that could be let out by the jailer according to the debtors ability to pay. Jenkins reported that the room called the Shoe had formerly been a chapel as the remnants of the Ten Commandments, painted on the wall, could still be seen. He also believed that the debtors were sometimes allowed access to the tops of the towers, "which command a fine prospect", so they could enjoy some of the fresh air.

The felons had a much worse time of it. Neild stated that "on the side opposite of the Gaoler's apartments are the three wards appropriated to the felons, dark, dirty and offensive; - we went into them with lighted candles: they have no chimney for ventilation; no courtyard belonging to them; nor water, except what was brought by the Keeper". There were three cells, two for men and one for women, located in the western side of the gatehouse. Jenkins related that these cells were all on the ground floor and "from their damp situation, and darkness, may not improperly be termed dungeons". The presence of an open sewer flowing from nearby Southernhay didn't add much to the comfort of those unfortunate enough to be imprisoned there. The largest felon cell was just over 12ft high, 18ft wide and 11ft deep. Above these cells were two day rooms with fireplaces accessed from below via a trap door. Jenkins wrote that John Howard, the 18th century prison reformer, believed that the South Gate prison was one of the "most unwholesome and dismal places of confinement" in England.

In June 1818 the foundation stone for a new 'House of Correction' was laid by the mayor at Northernhay where the Rougemont Hotel now stands. According to the 'Exeter Flying Post', the mayor declared that the construction of the new prison would take approximately 12 months "when the completion of their labours would be the destruction of a building which has long outraged humanity, and disgraced the city of Exeter". It's likely that the gatehouse would've been removed irrespective of the presence of the prison itself.

All of the city's other medieval gatehouse had already been removed for street improvements and the South Gate was the last one to go. Exactly one year later, in June 1819, an advertisement right appeared in the 'Exeter Flying Post' announcing the sale of building material from the South Gate, comprising bricks, stone, woodwork, floor joists as well as doors, windows and slate and lead from the roof. Parts of the South Gate must still exist in Exeter, spread around the city in various houses. (Old beams from 17th century houses demolished outside the South Gate in the 1970s were reused in a similar way e.g. at a house in Sylvan Road, Pennsylvannia.) The priest's house of Holy Trinity was demolished, along with the church, at the same time.

As with the slum clearances at the beginning of the 20th century, although the philanthropic sentiment can't be faulted it's impossible not to regret the demolition of the South Gate. As Hoskins wrote, "it's a vast pity that this magnificent gateway, one of the most impressive things of its kind in England, should have been destroyed like this and not by-passed as it could easily have been. Through this gateway many kings of England had passed from William the Conqueror onwards: it ranked with the cathedral, the castle, and the guildhall, as one of the grandest monuments to the Middle Ages in Exeter". The only city gatehouse left in England that was similar to the South Gate at Exeter is probably the surviving West Gate at Canterbury (the many surviving medieval gatehouses in York are of a quite different design).

The site today is marked by a late 19th century bronze plaque. The footprint of one of the square Roman towers and one of the early 15th century drum towers is marked out on the pavement in brick, highlighted in purple and red on the aerial view above left. Unfortunately the approach to the gate, an area that survived the Exeter Blitz of 1942 and which contained many historically interesting properties from the 17th and 18th centuries, has been totally spoilt by the construction of the inner bypass in the 1960s and 1970s. But that's a whole different story.

Sources

Medieval Stained Glass at Doddiscombsleigh

The small village of Doddiscombsleigh lies about five miles southwest of Exeter. The village is locally notorious for being difficult to find, despite its proximity to the city. It's surrounded by twisting narrow lanes and deep valleys with the foothills of Dartmoor stretching away to the horizon.

Remarkably, apart from that in the Great East Window of Exeter Cathedral, the parish church at Doddiscombsleigh contains the greatest collection of medieval stained glass to be found in situ anywhere in Devon.

Of particular interest is the fact that the Doddiscombsleigh panels and some of the glass at Exeter Cathedral were produced in the 15th century by the same glazing workshop.

The Doddiscombsleigh panels were installed c1480 and consist of five windows in the north aisle of the church of St Michael. This aisle was the original site of the 10th or 11th century church. (Part of the Saxon long-and-short work is still visible in the exterior of the north wall. This makes St Michael's one of the handful of extant buildings in Devon where Saxon masonry can still be seen.) The four windows in the north wall consist of groups of standing figures under which are heraldic shields. The window in the east wall of the aisle contains a single window depicting the Seven Sacraments, described in the church's guide book as St Michael's "crowning glory".

Although the workshop that produced the glass is now often referred to as the 'Doddiscombsleigh artelier' or 'Doddiscombsleigh school', the panels weren't made in the village. The village just happens to possess the best surviving examples of the workshop's output. In fact the workshop was almost certainly based in Exeter and comprised a number of people working on many different commissions. Although the glass produced by the workshop exhibits a general similarity in style, experts in medieval glass have been able to distinguish the hand of individual artists.

The workshop executed panels for churches all across the southwest of England. Fragmentary examples still exist at Bratton Clovelly, Dunsford, Manaton and Cadbury, all in Devon, as well as Melbury Bubb in Dorset and Winscombe, Pitcombe and Langport in Somerset. The workshop also received an important commission from the Dean and Chapter of Exeter Cathedral in the late 15th century for a glazing scheme for the cathedral's chapter house (these very beautiful panels were transferred to the Great East Window in the 19th century where they can be seen today).

The windows at Doddiscombsleigh have been restored at least twice since the 15th century. Once in 1762 by Peter Coles, who also restored some of the glass in Exeter Cathedral, and again in 1877 by a firm called Clayton & Bell when anything between 15% and 20% of the panels were replaced with newly-painted glass and the four windows on the north wall underwent some rearrangement of the figures.

So not all of the panels have survived intact, but given the destruction of the Reformation, the English Civil War, the Puritans, general neglect and five centuries of wind, rain, frost and sun, not to mention the scarcity of existing medieval glass in Devon generally, and it's almost miraculous that any of the glass has survived at all!

According to Vidimus, the online magazine dedicated to medieval stained glass, tracings were made of the windows by an antiquarian in 1847, prior to the restoration of the 1870s. From these tracings it's possible to reconstruct something of the original scheme before some of the panels were rearranged and new figures inserted. The panels featuring St John the Evangelist, St Patrick and St Edward the Confessor are entirely the work of Clayton & Bell. The head of the Christ child being carried by St Christopher is also a Victorian addition, as is the head of St Paul.

The 19th century figure of St Edward the Confessor is particularly impressive, the head right being slightly reminscent of Robert Lyen's work on the East Window at Exeter Cathedral at the end of the 14th century.

Although it doesn't quite capture the stylistic quality of the genuine 15th century panels at Doddiscombsleigh, the figure demonstrates how successfully Victorian craftsmanship could mimic medieval stained glass. The glass was artificially aged using various techniques so that it blended more convincingly with the medieval survivals.

Of the eleven saints depicted in the four windows of the north wall, eight are composed almost entirely of panels made c1480 by the Doddiscombsleigh workshop. These include the figures of St Christopher, St Michael weighing the souls of the dead, St Peter, the Virgin Mary, St Paul (with a Victorian head), St George killing a dragon (shown above, second from top), St Andrew and St James the Great, his cloak ornamented with sea shells. (This page at the Vidimus website has more detailed information on the reshuffling of the panels and their restoration.)

The fifth window left is the finest of all and is of national importance. It depicts the Seven Sacraments of the Church, seven separate panels depicting one sacrament each. In the centre of the scheme was originally a figure of Christ from which emanated lines of red glass, symbolising blood streaming from wounds of Christ and connecting each of the sacraments to God.

Unfortunately the central Christ figure had been removed at least by the end of the 18th century and replaced with clear glass. This was allegedly done at the behest of a local farmer who had a pew under the window. He complained that the large figure obscured the light so much that it prevented him from reading his Bible. The space occupied by Christ remained empty until the current figure was installed by Clayton & Bell in the 1870s. Comparison with a tiny fragment of a similar Seven Sacraments scheme from the same workshop that once existed at St Michael's at Cadbury near Exeter has shown that Clayton & Bell were probably incorrect in representing Christ as sitting, facing towards the viewer. The original panel probably showed Christ standing, facing slightly to the left. Despite this Victorian addition, the panels depicting the Seven Sacraments themselves have remain largely unaltered since the end of the 15th century.

The order of the Seven Sacraments in the window is as follows, starting in the top left and going anti-clockwise: The Eucharist shows a priest holding aloft the Eucharistic bread. The congregation crowd behind as he kneels before an altar draped in white and gold cloth upon which are placed a chalice and a statue of the Madonna.

Below this is the Sacrament of Marriage depicting a couple being married by a priest at the moment when the ring is placed on the bride's finger. To the bottom right is the Sacrament of Confirmation, the red-robed bishop wearing a mitre (a detail from this panel is shown above, the third photo from the top).

The central panel at the bottom of the window depicts the Sacrament of Absolution and shows a priest sitting on a wooden bench, dressed in a red cowl and hearing the confessions of a sinner, his hand placed on the sinner's head in an act of absolution. The top right panel is the Sacrament of Ordination with a bishop carrying a crozier seated before three newly-ordained priests as three others watch on in the background (this panel is shown at the top of this post). Beneath is the Sacrament of Baptism, the infant being held over a Gothic font and surrounded by a priest and four adults, probably the parents and godparents, above right.

The seventh panel shows the Sacrament of Extreme Unction left, a dying man propped up in bed as he receives sacramental bread from a priest, his wife in the background, a chair standing near the bed on a floor of black and white tiles. The four small figures at the top of the window, above the main lights, depict St Stephen, St Lawrence and St Blaise. The forth is believed to be either St Heydrop or St Nicholas.

When Clayton & Bell restored the window in 1877 they believed "the scheme of the window to be entirely unique, never having seen anything like it in England or abroad". In fact the remains of several other Seven Sacrament windows do still exist. As mentioned above, there was a very similar scheme at Cadbury and fragments of others can be seen at St Trynog's in Llandyrnog in Wales, Cartmel Fell in Cumbria and Melbury Bubb in Somerset. But the Vidimus website states that the window at Doddiscombsleigh is "the most complete in situ composition of the Seven Sacraments in any English church". Full images of the other four windows containing medieval panels are shown below.

These panels left Exeter over five hundred years ago, around the time of the Wars of the Roses, transported out of the city during the Late Middle Ages on a cart and hauled up and down the precipitous hills of West Devon before being installed in the church for which they were made. And they remain there today, rare survivals of perhaps the most fragile of medieval art forms.

The Imminent Sale of Exeter's Church Plate

Exeter has lost a number of its central medieval parish churches. St George's and St Kerrian's were demolished in the 19th century. Allhallows, St Paul's and St John's were all demolished in the first four decades of the 20th century. St Lawrence on the High Street was badly damaged during the Exeter Blitz of 1942 and subsequently demolished. St Mary Major's was demolished in the 1970s. The churches of St Petrock's, St Mary Steps, St Pancras's, St Olave's, St Stephen's, St Mary Arches's and St Martin's still survive.

All of these buildings, from their ancient foundations through their subsequent development, tell the story of Exeter's history over the last one thousand years. Over the centuries each church accrued collections of plate: chalices, salvers, flagons, communion cups and patens, made of either pewter or silver, often bequeathed by wealthy benefactors to be held by the church in perpetuity. When a church was demolished or destroyed that church's plate frequently found its way into another church where it became part of a new collection. Dwindling post-war congregations means that the churches of St Stephen's, St Petrock's, St Pancras', St Mary Arches and St Olave's now form a single entity known as the Parish of Central Exeter. The PoCE has control of nearly all of the church plate from the medieval parish churches, both from the churches that still survive and those that have disappeared.

The Parish of Central Exeter's collection consists of 116 individual pieces, some of which dates back to the 1570s. For many years much of the collection was displayed at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter right. The collection of plate is currently in a bank vault, allegedly in Glasgow. Mention must also be made of the St Stephen's project, a £1.5 million regeneration of one of Exeter's central churches, managed by the PoCE, which includes such 'necessities' as touch-screen interactive panels. In order to raise money for the project some of the collection is being sold at Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood auctioneers in Exeter on 11 July

In February 2012 a spokesman for the Dean and Chapter told a local journalist that the PoCE had asked for permission to sell twelve of the pieces. Permission was granted but the true extent of the sale remains uncertain. Keith Walton, a church warden, told the local paper that "we assessed all of the items that are held and have only put forward those with the least significant historic interest for Exeter". John Allan, one of Exeter's most senior archaeologists, has written an article especially for the catalogue of the planned sale of the silver. In the article he states that, in some cases, all that survives of some of Exeter's oldest churches is their plate. So let's see exactly what is being sold at auction on 11 July.

The first item is a silver communion cup made c1575 by Exeter's most celebrated Elizabethan goldsmith, John Jones. (This item is shown at the top of this post.) Examples of his work are on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The cover is engraved with a Tudor rose and was used as a paten. The cup held the consecrated wine and the bread was laid on the paten. It is inscribed: "Entrusted to the Church Wardens of St Petrock by The Parish of St Kerrian, May 1884". St Kerrian's church on North Street is first mentioned in 1194 but was demolished in 1878. This is almost certainly the communion cup and cover that was used in St Kerrian's church for three hundred years, possibly fashioned by John Jones out of a pre-existing medieval chalice. In the auction catalogue, John Allan states that this cup is probably the church's "most important surviving relic".

The second item is another Elizabethan silver communion cup with cover also by John Jones c1575 left. This cup is inscribed "St Paul's, Exon, 1758". Like St Kerrian's, the church of St Paul on Paul Street had ancient origins stretching far back into the city's past. The communion cup was once again perhaps reformed from a medieval chalice. The cup was in use before the church was rebuilt in the 1680s and it survived both the Commonwealth which followed the English Civil War and the demolition of the church in 1937. As in the case of St Kerrian's, this communion cup is the most important surviving remnant of the church along with its parish registers.

Other items relating to St Paul's church are in the planned sale. A pair of George II silver flagons made in London in 1758 and inscribed "St Paul's, Exon, 1758" are also to be sold along with two late 17th century silver patens, made in Exeter by John Dagge and inscribed "St Paul's, Exon, 1758". A silver paten from 1658 that was used in the bombed church of St Lawrence, inscribed "St Lawrence, 1690" is in the auction, shown bottom. Another piece associated with St Lawrence's is a silver flagon with a domed lid, made in London in 1735 and inscribed "The Gift of Mr Robt Dawe to the Church of St Lawrence in Exeter, A.D 1735". Yet another silver flagon, made in London in 1692 and inscribed "St Martin's in Exon" is also going along with two silver flagons made late in the reign of Charles I. They are inscribed with "St Stephen's" and the date 1664, commemorating the year that the church was rebuilt following severe damage during the Commonwealth. What John Allan calls "historically one of the most interesting items in the sale" is a silver flagon that was given to St John's church by Thomas Potter in 1694.

The idea that the two Elizabethan communion cups, particuarly, fall into the category of "least significant historic interest" is risible. They were at the very centre of the liturgy at St Kerrian's and at St Paul's for over sixteen generations and played an integral role in the religious experience of thousands of Exeter's citizens. You don't have to be religious or belong to any particular denomination to realise that these two items are of profound importance to Exeter's heritage. They are history incarnate and that they are now to be sold off is reprehensible. It is no different to the sale of the Elizabethan and Jacobean interiors at No. 229 High Street right in 1930 to William Randolph Hearst, an act which has been widely condemned ever since. It would be like the cathedral selling Leofric's 'Exeter Book' of Anglo-Saxon literature or the city council selling the civic regalia and the sword presented to the city by Henry VII. Both items, like the two communion cups and other pieces of church plate, are inextricably linked to the history of Exeter.

The Parish of Central Exeter may well be the legal owner of the two John Jones cups and the other items but by putting them up for sale it has proven itself to be an unfit custodian of the entire collection. Irrespective of the inclusion of the communion cups, the sale of even one part of the collection throws the future of the entire collection into doubt. Now it has been dipped into once then who is to say that other pieces won't be sold the next time that more money is needed. The PoCE's website refers to "the first auction" taking place on 11 July which implies that more auction sales are imminent. It's ironic that the PoCE used the phrase "St Stephen's church has been here for a thousand years and belongs to us all" as part of its fundraising campaign. A sense of collective ownership could equally be applied to elements of the church plate that is being sold.

A small story about the sale appeared in the Express & Echo in March 2012, which is when the untruth was told concerning the pieces of "least significant historic interest". It's only recently that the presence of the communion cups in the sale has become public knowledge. Clearly there's a real possibility that everything in the collection will eventually be dispersed. If the communion cups of St Paul's and St Kerrian's can be sold then anything can be sold. It is extremely disappointing that attitudes towards Exeter's heritage seem to have changed so little when so much has already been irretrievably lost.

Holy Trinity Church, South Street

In 1908 Beatrix Cresswell claimed that the church of Holy Trinity on South Street "has been almost the worst architectural sufferer in the city". The candidate for that title, over a century later, is much longer than it was even in Cresswell's day but the complete demolition and rebuilding of the ancient church in 1820 was certainly unfortunate.

Built mostly from red Heavitree breccia, Holy Trinity stood just inside the city walls, almost adjacent to the South Gate. The church and the gatehouse were so close to each other that, from a distance, it appeared as if they were two parts of the same structure. Something of this effect can be seen in the drawing left. It shows the view at the bottom of South Street looking out of the city via the South Gate. Only the north-west tower of Holy Trinity is visible to the left, projecting out into the street. The main body of the church lies out of sight behind the timber-framed house, at a right-angle to the street and parallel with the city wall. A narrow passageway ran between the side of the church and the house shown to the immediate left of the tower.

The photo right, a detail from Hedgeland's early 19th century model of Exeter, gives a clearer idea of the relationship between Holy Trinity and the South Gate. George's Meeting, further up South Street, James Street and the city wall can also be seen.

All of the city's medieval gatehouses had parish churches or chapels associated with them. St Cuthbert's was either close to or inside the North Gate. St Bartholomew's was almost certainly in an upper chamber inside the East Gate. St Mary Steps was just through the West Gate. I doubt it was a coincidence that places of worship and sanctuary grew up at what have been the main entrances into Exeter since the 2nd century AD.

Holy Trinity on South Street was in existence by 1200 although the exact date of its foundation is unknown. It's mentioned by Peter de Palerna at the beginning of the 13th century along with another chapel dedicated to the Holy Trinity in Musgrave Alley, close to St Lawrence's church on the High Street. Given the great antiquity of the South Gate it's easy to imagine that a chapel of some sort was on the site before the Norman Conquest but there is no evidence for it. By the end of the 18th century the majority of the parish of Holy Trinity lay beyond the city walls and was described in 1806 as "extensive and populous". It included nearly all of Southernhay and the Quay as well as Magdalen Street and part of Holloway Street. The Trinity Burial Ground, now under the Southgate Hotel and car park, was established close to Holy Trinity church in 1664.

A detail from Hooker's 1587 map of Exeter is shown left with both the tower of Holy Trinity and the South Gate clearly visible. The gatehouse to the Bishop's Palace can be seen in the background.

Alexander Jenkins visited the medieval church in 1806, describing it as "a handsome Gothic edifice, kept in good repair". The tower contained "four small untunable bells, and a clock and dial". Both the gatehouse and the tower of Holy Trinity caused a significant narrowing of South Street as the thoroughfare passed under the South Gate. Jenkins mentions "an arched building adjoining the tower, once the habitation of the Priest, but now of the Sexton". The priest's house was located "over the king's high way" i.e. over South Street itself. In the early 17th century it was known as the Parsonage House and was entered from South Street via a Gothic doorway. According to Jenkins the interior of the church consisted of "a chancel, nave and one aisle". The aisle was separated from the nave by "six clustered pillars", and there were also two galleries. Jenkins also describes "a neat monument" on the north side of the chancel in memory of John Wyse, a merchant who died in 1686.

The image right is a detail from Benjamin Donn's 1765 map of Exeter showing the location of Holy Trinity just inside the city walls.

Little else would be known about the medieval building if it wasn't for the remarkable survival of one particular document. It was written in 1452 when Bishop Lacy held the See of Exeter and refers to an enquiry ordered by the Bishop following a request by Simon Chudleigh, then Rector of Holy Trinity. The enquiry revolved around the issue of when the church was first dedicated. The document reveals that the church was already so old and decayed by the beginning of the 15th century that some major rebuilding was necessary. The building works were carried out under a previous rector, John Govys, who assumed the position from 1402 until 1416. The repairs were extensive and it appears that the church was closed for a considerable period of time. The roof was replaced and the south and west walls were rebuilt. The north wall remained intact apart from some timber additions to the upper part to help support the roof. It's possible that these repairs deliberately coincided with a major rebuilding of the South Gate between 1410 and 1420. (Bishop Stafford held the See of Exeter between 1395 and 1419. A detail from his alabaster effigy in Exeter Cathedral, covered in post-Reformation graffiti, is shown below left.)

It was customary to celebrate annually the date when a church was originally consecrated. The problem at Holy Trinity lay in the fact that the church was closed for so long during the repairs that by 1452 no-one could be quite sure when the feast of dedication should take place or whether the church had been desecrated during the renovations. This is why the rector Simon Chudleigh approached Bishop Lacy and Lacy's enquiry attempted to rediscover the date of the consecration.

The enquiry took place in the church itself on 23 August. It was led by the Archdeacon of Exeter and nine of the oldest inhabitants of the parish were interviewed as witnesses. The witnesses included Ralph Ferrant, a blacksmith aged around seventy-six or more who had lived in Exeter for over sixty years; John Whytton, who was 80-years-old; Nicholas Bishop, a tucker who worked in the city's cloth industry and was aged over seventy-four, and Simon Riggeway who was over seventy. These people would've been regarded as exceptionally ancient given that the average lifespan was between 30 and 40!

None of the nine witnesses could remember when or by whom the church was first dedicated because their memories did not extend back that far but they all seemed to agree that the church's feast day was the 30 September, the feast day of St Jerome. They also declared that they had seen the church prior to the renovations and it had retained the signs of dedication. These 'signs' were twelves crosses which had been painted on the walls of the church prior to the feast of dedication (three on each of the four interior walls). Above each cross a nail was driven into the wall from which was suspended a candle that was lit as part of the annual dedication ceremony. The witnesses also swore that the church hadn't been desecrated during the building works over thirty years before.

The image right shows Holy Trinity and the two arched passageways of the South Gate as drawn by John Hooker c1555.

As well as relating the information about the earlier rebuilding of the walls and the roof, the witnesses also revealed that the church had contained "a soler" i.e. a gallery or loft from which members of the congregation could witness the service. There was also a high altar made of stone in the chancel and outside the chancel were three other stone altars. The central altar of the three was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Another was dedicated to St Giles and featured a wooden statue of the saint set within a niche or tabernacle in the wall.

Near the stone baptismal font was an effigy of the corpse of John de Susseter who had been made Rector of Holy Trinity in 1349. The nature of this effigy is a slight mystery. It sounds like a cadaver tomb which usually depict a sculpted decomposing corpse, or transi. Two examples of this macabre type of monument can still be seen in Exeter Cathedral, detail left. They didn't become widespread in England until c1420 onwards by which time John de Susseter was long dead. (The two examples in Exeter Cathedral are from the 16th century.) It's possible that Susseter's monument was a very early example or perhaps it was something quite different entirely. Unfortunately no further details about the effigy are given and its fate is unknown. The witnesses also testified to the fact that the place of John de Susseter's burial could be seen as the ground had sunk following the decomposition of the body. The enquiry concluded that the feast of dedication was indeed on 30 September and that the church hadn't been desecrated during the repairs. The document remained in the parish chest at Holy Trinity for centuries until it was framed, hanging on the wall of the vestry of the post-1820 structure. Today it is presumably either in the cathedral archives or the Devon Records Office.

The composite image right gives some idea of how the medieval church and the South Gate would appear today in South Street if they had both avoided demolition.

On 18 May 1529 the mayor granted the church a piece of land for a new aisle (presumably the aisle mentioned by Jenkins in 1806). Before this date the church probably consisted solely of a nave and chancel, as St Pancras' church still does today. A Corporation Act states that the aisle was to be 12ft wide, extending out "from the churche wall of the Trinity aforesaid, towards the wall of the Citie, and 32 fote of length". The church was to pay the city 2s every year in perpetuity for the use of the land. In 1656, during the Commonwealth that followed the English Civil War, the number of parish churches in Exeter was reduced to just four. On 19 June 1658 Holy Trinity was sold to its parishioners for £100. The parish was restored following the Restoration in 1660. Apart from the addition of the aisle in the 1520s, the fabric of the church appears to have remained largely unchanged from the early 15th century until Jenkins visited in 1806.

Plans for the demolition of Holy Trinity had surfaced by 1817. On 31 July both the church and the tower were described in a letter sent to the 'Exeter Flying Post' as "decayed and delapidated" and "a great and dangerous public nuisance...long and universally complained of." The tower blocking part of South Street seems to have been a particular source of irritation. It seems that not everyone agreed with the proposed demolition and rebuilding of Holy Trinity. One parishioner, calling himself 'Trinitarian', smelt a rat in the fact that the church had been declared unsound at what he called a "convenient time". It does seem strange that just ten years earlier Jenkins had claimed that the church was "kept in good repair".

Space was also an issue. The medieval church could only sit around 400 worshippers whereas there were approximately 1900 in the extensive parish of Holy Trinity. The two options were either to repair and enlarge the church or to demolish it completely and build a new one. On 03 December 1818 a parish meeting voted on a proposition brought forward by Samuel Milford. The proposal included "taking down entirely the present Church and rebuilding it of dimensions adequate to the population of the parish". The motion was carried unanimously and the church was demolished in the spring of 1819. The South Gate followed soon after.

It's unfortunate that the old church wasn't repaired and retained. Cresswell said that "nothing could check the all-devouring monster of 'street improvement'", which had "assimilated one old building in the city after another". Cresswell also refers to the "architectural deformities" of the replacement church, designed and built by Robert Cornish and his son, local architects, and constructed at a cost of £7000 above. Brick-built with a stucco exterior, the new church was opened on Christmas Eve 1820 and no-one seems to have a good word to say about it. Just a year after its completion it was described by George Oliver as "inelegant" and Robert Dymond called it "singular". More recently, Hugh Mellor described the building as "shabby" and wonders whether its destruction during the Blitz wouldn't have been "a merciful release". It doesn't help that post-war demolition of the surrounding area has left the building standing in such a prominent position, stripped of its context within a larger historical landscape. The church was deconsecrated in the 1970s and in 1977 was taken over by the White Ensign Club who divided it horizontally into two separate floors. No ecclesiastical fixtures survive, although one window contains a late 19th century nativity scene in stained glass. The White Ensign Club, as it is now known, is Grade II listed.

The photograph below shows the former Holy Trinity church on the right with South Street receding into the distance. The location of what was once one of the South Gate's huge round towers is picked out in brick on the pavement to the left.

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George's Meeting, South Street

George's Meeting on South Street left is a real cracker. It has survived both the Exeter Blitz and post-war reconstruction and is now one of Exeter's Grade I listed buildings. Only 2.5% of all listed buildings in England fall into this category, reserved for structures of exceptional interest.

George's Meeting was built as a Unitarian chapel in 1760, the year in which George III acceded to the throne. According to Allan Brockett, "it was named George's Chapel in remembrance of the benefits that English Protestantism, and the Dissenters in particular, had gained from the Hannoverian Succession". The south west of Britain has a long history of Nonconformism. Dissenting congregations i.e. those who had broken away from the established Church of England, were only able to worship freely without fear of interference in their own meeting houses following the Declaration of Indulgence in 1687 and the Toleration Act of 1689. One of the first of these meeting houses was James's Meeting, named after King James II, built by the Exeter Presbyterians in 1687. It was located in James Street, a narrow street almost opposite George's Meeting and close to the South Gate. (The original James's Meeting of 1687 was converted into houses in 1760 and survived until it was demolished by the city council in the 1960s.)

Two other early Dissenting meeting houses emerged in Exeter at the end of the 17th century. One was the Bow Meeting, probably located in Smythen Street within the parish of St John's Bow on Fore Street. The other was Little Meeting located in Waterbeer Street. James's Meeting, Bow Meeting and Little Meeting were collectively known as the Three United Congregations of Presbyterian Protestant Dissenters.

George's Meeting in South Street was constructed as a replacement for the earlier James's Meeting. In the words of Hugh Mellor, the new meeting house was "built on a scale unsurpassed by any other [Dissenting] chapel in the south west". Funds for the new building were raised partly through the sale of both the old James's Meeting house in James Street and the Little Meeting house in Waterbeer Street. £400 was borrowed from a fund and the rest was raised through subscription, paid for by members of a congregation described as "large and genteel" by Jenkins in 1806. Some of those who donated money were members of the Kennaway family, one of Exeter's wealthiest families by the end of the 18th century. (John Kennaway was raised to the Baronetcy of Hyderabad in the East Indies by George III in 1791. The family still live on their 18th century estate at Escot, some 12 miles from Exeter.) Allan Brockett has surmised that the total amount available for building George's Meeting was around £2500 to £3000.

The building was never intended to be seen as it appears today. Prior to the 1960s George's Meeting was set back from South Street, surrounded by other properties which hemmed it in on either side.

The aerial view left shows George's Meeting highlighted in purple. Bomb damage from 1942 is highlighted in red. The area affected by post-war redevelopment is highlighted in yellow. The adjacent buildings were demolished in the late 1950s for road-widening leaving George's Meeting exposed on all sides. Today the structure looks like a huge barn, pierced on the sides with arched windows. Only the neo-Classical front was originally designed for public display.

The meeting house is built from the beautiful locally-fired, burnt-red bricks that were once a common sight throughout the Georgian city (e.g. at Bedford Circus, Dix's Field and Southernhay West). The restrained street frontage has a number of neo-Classical details e.g. the pedimented porch supported on a pair of stone Tuscan columns, the brackets supporting the arched windows, the rendered quoins at each corner and the modillion cornice which runs along the roof line with a high curved parapet above. The parapet serves to disguise the large hipped roof from street level. (When the New Theatre was constructed in Bedford Street in 1787 it took a form that was similar to George's Meeting in South Street, including the red-brick walls, hipped roof, distinctive curved parapet, etc. The New Theatre was destroyed by fire in 1820.)

Pevsner and Cherry described the interior of George's Meeting as "sombre and magnificent". There are three galleries supported by square, fluted, Ionic piers right c1960 © Devon County Council. The west gallery includes a late 17th century clock, but the highlight is probably the enormous pulpit, carved with drapery, transferred from the original James's Meeting in James Street. In 1767 there were plans for a new mahogany pulpit but nothing seems to have come of this. Allan Brockett believed it was unlikely that any replacement would've equalled the one recycled from the old meeting house anyway. A vestry was added at the rear in 1781 and the ceiling was lowered by 3ft in 1809 to improve the acoustics, but the building has remained essentially unchanged since the middle of the 18th century.

It is astonishing that the city's post-war townplanner, Thomas Sharp, regarded the meeting house as disposable, recommending its demolition as part of the redevelopment of Exeter following World War Two. If George's Meeting hadn't been set back from the street in 1760 it would probably have been demolished for road-widening. Fortunately the local authority rejected Sharp's proposal and George's Meeting received listed building status in 1953.

The meeting house fell into disuse in 1983 and is now a Weatherspoons pub. The bar has been constructed underneath the full length of one of the galleries. It's a pity that such an important building couldn't have been used as a venue, retaining the original space, but all of the historical fittings have been left intact, including the pulpit, and at least the building is being maintained. Its situation at the end of South Street, surrounded by post-war redevelopment and close to the city's inner ring road, means that George's Meeting probably doesn't get the full attention it deserves.

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