Crafts and Industries

Timeline

Crafts and Industries Prehistory

Making flint tools, pottery or metalwork needed much skill and practice. The tools and everyday items from this time represent a range of levels of technical skill and specialist ability.

Crafts and Industries Roman Fortress

The Roman army brought with them many new skills in craft and industry. They brought new technology for making pottery, the production of tiles for buildings, the quarrying of stone, and even gold and silver-working. Excavations in the city discovered their workshop were metal tools and weapons were made and repaired for the legionary soldiers.

Crafts and Industries Roman Town

The citizens of the Roman town continued to use many of the skills introduced by the army. Both everyday and luxurious items including pottery, building tiles and gold and silver-working were made in the town. The townspeople also made food in the Roman style, with excavations revealing an oven used to bake Roman bread.

Crafts and Industries Dark Age Town

No evidence has been discovered yet in Exeter relating to crafts and industry in prehistory. After the collapse of the Roman town the local people probably went back to more traditional ways of living, with their houses and everyday items made from materials like wood and leather, which have not survived until today.

Crafts and Industries Saxon Town

The archaeological finds from the Saxon town show a wide range of activities going on side-by-side in the centre of the city. These include the working of textiles and leather, metalworking, butchering and hornworking. Away from the city centre, an Anglo-Saxon pottery kiln produced ceramics of very high quality.

Crafts and Industries Norman Town

A range of crafts and industries thrived in the Norman town, including textiles, leather, bone and metal working. The ambitious Norman programme of building new churches and castles must have greatly developed the local building industry. By the late 12th century local craftsmen were creating some very high skilled pieces of architectural stonework.

Crafts and Industries Medieval City

The medieval city of Exeter developed as a regional centre for manufacture. The highly skilled work of wood and stone craftsmen can be seen in the Cathedral and many churches in Devon. Everyday items also continued to be made in the city, including pottery, wooden and metal items. The city was well-known for the production and trade in woollen cloth, yet none of this cloth is known to survive today.

Crafts and Industries Tudor City

Exeter continued to thrive as a regional centre for manufacture with industries in bell-founding and glassmaking developing during this time. Among the building trades, the city's wood-carvers, stonemasons and plaster workers are well represented throughout Devon. The main source of employment for the people of Exeter was the cloth trade, but evidence for this is very elusive in the archaeological record.

Crafts and Industries Civil War

In January 1644, following the capture of Exeter by Royalist forces, King Charles I commissioned Sir Richard Vyvyan to set up a new mint in the city. Vyvyan had minted coins for the King at Truro in 1642-3, and he brought with him some equipment from there including coin dies. The location of the mint in Exeter is not firmly known but there are suggestions that it was in St Olave's parish, probably in Mint Lane. A full range of denominations from one penny to the gold unite (one pound) was issued; many of these are very rare.

Crafts and Industries Golden Age

Exeter was a thriving city based on the success of its cloth trade, employing about 60% of the city's workforce at this time. The principal kind of cloth produced was serge - light, hard-wearing and brightly coloured woollen. Celia Fiennes, a traveller who visited the city in 1698 wrote that the Exeter cloth trade ‘turned the most money of anything in England'.

Gold and silver working continued to grow in Exeter, principally producing silver spoons and items for churches. Following a conflict between the Exeter and London goldsmiths an assay office was set up in Exeter in 1701. Shortly afterwards a local goldsmith called John Elston brought London craftsmen to Exeter, who were skilled in making complex objects. His workshop was able to produce much more sophisticated products and was very prolific.

Crafts and Industries Georgian City

Exeter's important cloth trade collapsed in the late Georgian period. Other small industries developed including clay pipe makers, pewterers, glass-blowers, clockmakers and sculptors. During this time many small businesses were established, including banks and insurance companies. Some of these have survived until today.

Crafts and Industries Victorian City

Victorian Exeter was filled with private businesses. These ranged from breweries to brickworks, metalworking to lace production. In showing off the skills of Victorian craftsmen the museum building is itself a prime example, being a major commission of the leading local architectural practices of the day.

Crafts and Industries Modern City

For the first part of the 20^th century Exeter continued as a place of industry and crafts, with important iron foundries and brickworks, and a wide range of smaller enterprises including an Art pottery. Today many of these industries have been replaced with modern industries but the city remains a regional centre.