Medieval Exeter

The University’s Streatham Campus is conveniently located with excellent access to the heart of historic Exeter. While Exeter’s rich cultural heritage extends back to the Roman period, the city also boasts particularly fine evidence of its medieval past. There is much more to medieval Exeter than its world-famous cathedral: the city also features one of Britain’s best surviving town walls, an excellent collection of medieval churches and domestic buildings, an historic quay and a royal castle, and many quarters still retain an authentic medieval flavour. Some of these sites are described in more detail below, but the only real way to experience historic Exeter is to explore the city in person.

Exeter Cathedral

The undoubted showpiece of medieval Exeter is the cathedral, which displays some of the finest Decorated Gothic architecture anywhere in Britain, as well as an earlier pair of Norman towers. Within the cathedral lie art historical and architectural riches in abundance; it is located in the stunning setting of cathedral green, surrounded by numerous medieval buildings.

First built around 200AD, Exeter’s city wall has encircled the historic town ever since. Well over two-thirds of the circuit survives (more than 2.5 kilometres in circumference), preserving clear evidence of rebuilding and re-use through the medieval period to the present day. This view shows the ‘fossilised’ line of an earlier wall-top within the structure of the wall, which may be early medieval in date.

The House that Moved

Among Exeter’s finest medieval domestic buildings is ‘The House that Moved’, Frog Street, so called because the entire structure was relocated in the early 1960s due to the construction of the city’s inner bypass. The building is an excellent example of a late medieval merchant’s house, displaying a jettied timber-framed structure in its upper portions.

Exeter Gate House

The gatehouse of Rougemont Castle, dating to 1068, is among the very earliest stone-built features of castle architecture in Britain. The gatehouse marked the principal point of access into Exeter’s royal castle, and displays a remarkable combination of early Norman and late Anglo-Saxon architectural features. The castle was built under the orders of William the Conqueror, following an eighteen-day siege of the city.

Exeter medieval bridge

Near New Bridge Street are preserved the remains of Exeter’s medieval bridge over the Exe. The first stone bridge was built at the end of the twelfth century to span a waterlogged marsh outside the city’s west gate, and was at least four times longer than the surviving monument. The structure also preserves a rare example of a bridge church (St Edmunds), which was one of a number of medieval buildings constructed on it.

[photographs and text by Oliver Creighton]