Form and Growth of the City

Timeline

The Form and Growth of the City Prehistory

The Exeter area may have been occupied for as long as 250,000 years. There is evidence of more-or-less continuous human activity since the last Ice Age.

The Form and Growth of the City Roman Fortress

Exeter owes its foundation to the Roman army. Around AD 50-55 they built a fortress where the centre of the modern city now stands. It was the headquarters for the Second Augustan legion and commanded a vital crossing place across the river Exe. The fort was rectangular with round corners containing a grid of streets with timber buildings. It was joined by a road to Topsham, where there was a fort and other buildings, possibly a supply base or port. Other Roman roads ran through Heavitree towards the coast and from Sidwell Street to Whipton, although their precise courses are uncertain.

The Form and Growth of the City Roman Town

After the army left Exeter, the site of their fortress became a town known as Isca Dumnoniorum. The town began to grow outside of the old fortress, so by AD 180-200 a new wall was built enclosing 93 acres. In the third and fourth centuries some grand houses laid mosaic floors, but by about AD 360 a decline had set in. Much of the urban life of the last 300 years seemed to end and the people turned to farming.

The Form and Growth of the City Dark Age Town

In the centre of Exeter, which was now apparently deserted, a burial ground came into use during the 5th century. It was probably a Christian cemetery. This area is now covered by the grass of the western side of Cathedral Close. In this same area a minster (monastery) was established by the late 7th century; here Boniface was educated around AD 680.

The Form and Growth of the City Saxon Town

The revival of town life in the Saxon period was marked by settlement largely within the walled area. It is probably King Alfred the Great (AD 871-899) who should be credited with Exeter's re-foundation. A new street grid was laid out within the walls and the defences were refurbished. The city grew rapidly, so by the year 1000 it was about the sixth richest in Britain. The minster became a cathedral in 1050, when Bishop Leofric moved his seat here from Crediton. Soon afterwards a new Norman cathedral was built and the Saxon minster became the parish church of St Mary Major.

The Form and Growth of the City Norman Town

This quote by the author of The Deeds of Stephen comes from the mid 12th century. It describes Exeter as:

A large town, with very ancient walls built by the Roman emperors, the fourth place, they say, in England, abundantly supplied with fish from the sea, and meat as well, and with a flourishing shipping trade. There is a castle in it raised on a very high mound surrounded by an impregnable wall and fortified with towers of hewn limestone constructed by the emperors.

The Form and Growth of the City Medieval City

After tremendous growth between 1000 and 1200, Exeter experienced a long period of more modest success in the later middle ages. It remained a regional centre for much of Devon and Somerset, with its markets and fairs, town crafts and foreign trade. It was also an important centre of the church, with its cathedral, monasteries, friaries, and hospitals, in addition to its thirty parish churches. By the late 14th century as much as a third of the city's population lived outside the walls - especially the poor.

The Form and Growth of the City Tudor City

The early Tudor period brought a dramatic rise in the city's prosperity; it was among the wealthiest English cities like Norwich, York, Bristol and Newcastle in the 1520s. This wealth was based on the Devon cloth industry: cloth woven in the county was brought to Exeter for dyeing and finishing before export to France, the Mediterranean and the Low Countries. Some of the famous figures of Elizabethan England are associated with the city - like the Devon sea-captains Walter Ralegh and Francis Drake, and Nicholas Hilliard, the painter of miniature portraits at the court of Elizabeth I.

The Form and Growth of the City Civil War

Exeter suffered terrible damage in the Civil War between Charles I and Parliament of 1642-6. The Roundheads supporting Parliament controlled the city at first and Exeter defended itself in 1642-3 against the Royalists. The city wall was repaired, gun batteries were set up and ditches deepened. Nevertheless the Royalist armies captured the city, improved the defences and held it until 1646 when Sir Thomas Fairfax recaptured the city for Parliament. It was left badly damaged, especially the suburbs. Re-building began in the 1650s.

The Form and Growth of the City Golden Age

The years following the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 saw a spectacular rise in the Exeter's fortunes - it peaked between about 1680 and 1730. There was rapid population growth from around about 9,000 in 1640 to around 13,000 by the 1680s. New houses were built, especially in the suburbs. In 1700 the city was the fourth or fifth largest in Britain. This expansion was the result of a flourishing Devon cloth industry, and the development of a major new market for it in the Netherlands, especially at Rotterdam.

The Form and Growth of the City Georgian City

The enormous growth in population meant that the old walled town was now crowded with houses. The old medieval streets were unable to cope with the rise in wheeled vehicles, whilst disease spread among the poor. New roads, improved sanitation and building suburbs in the Georgian period began to tackle these problems. By the 1830s the Devon woollen industry had almost vanished, overtaken by the great mills and factories of the Midlands and the North. The years 1750-1830 saw great changes in Exeter, as it became increasingly popular as a fashionable county town.

The Form and Growth of the City Victorian City

Improvements in the city continued in the Victorian period, such as the new Queen Street (after Victoria), schools, hospitals, sewers and street lighting. The population grew from 28,000 in 1831 to 47,000 in 1901, and with it came a large growth in Exeter's suburbs - St Thomas, Heavitree, Mount Pleasant and St Davids. New facilities for this growing population included the Albert Memorial Institution founded in the 1860s (later to become the museum), new churches and a cathedral restoration in the 1870s.

The Form and Growth of the City Modern City

In 1900 Exeter still occupied less than a third of the area of the modern city. Some parts of the city still contained very poor homes; public housing schemes cleared these away in the 1920s and 30s. New estates were built on the outskirts of the city, swallowing up the old villages of Alphington, Exwick, Whipton, Heavitree and Pinhoe. In May 1942 bombing raids left many historic buildings and homes destroyed. Over the next few decades much of the city was hastily rebuilt, leaving modern Exeter with its distinctive mix of new and historic buildings.

Aerial view of Exeter and Topsham
Reconstruction view of the fortress
A fortress street
Restored plan of the fortress
The hand–axe found at Magdalen Street, Exeter
A Palaeolithic implement
Mesolithic microliths from Retreat Field, Topsham
Neolithic flint axe fragment, St Bridget’s Nursery, Topsham
Neolithic polished axe fragment from Goldsmith Street, Exeter
Neolithic axe fragment from Topsham
Flints from the Ludwell Valley
Bronze Age axe from the Exeter area
Plan of Saxon Exeter
Gandy Street
A Saxon hedge–line
A Saxon boundary point
Reconstruction view of Roman town in the early 4th century
A Roman street
Plans of the defences outside East Gate
Plan of Norman Exeter
Plan of Medieval Exeter
Map of Exeter of c1851
The city centre in 1876
Exeter from above Exwick
The Guildhall and High Street
North Street in Victoria’s reign
The Hogenburg map
Exeter from Exwick
Exeter from Exwick: the Frances Towne watercolour
Exeter from Exwick
Donn’s map of Exeter
Donn’s map of the Exeter area
Exeter in 1835
The destruction of the suburbs
Detail of the Buck Brothers’ view of Exeter from St Thomas
The Buck Brothers’ South West View of Exeter
Stukeley’s map of Exeter of 1723
Stukeley’s prospect of Exeter
Ogilby’s road map of the Exeter to Dorchester road
Besley’s bird’s–eye view of central Exeter, c1910
The Exe and St David’s in the 1920s
Countess Wear bridge
View of Exeter from Haldon
Damage to the cathedral
Exeter Cathedral and the Close in 1943
Bedford Circus after the Blitz
Thomas Sharp’s plan, 1946
Architect’s drawing of the new Dingle’s shop
Architect’s drawing for the Martin’s Bank
The Eastgate area under reconstruction
Princesshay in the 1990s
Blackboy Road in the 1960s
Architect’s model of the city centre in the 1970s
Filming ’The Onedin Line’ on Exeter Quay
Exeter City Plan, 1995–2011
Map from the Urban Archaeological Database
German map of Exeter
The Cathedral Close in the 1950s
The Iron Age settlement in Southernhay
The Iron Age settlement in Southernhay
Plan of the Iron Age settlement in Southernhay
A Roman lamp from Lion’s Holt
Coin of Nero found in Alphington Road (obverse)
An early Roman coin from Topsham Road (obverse)
Coin of Julius Caesar found at Hamlin Lane allotments
A coin of Nero (obverse)
Location plan of the Exeter fortress and annexes, and Valiant Soldier cemetery site
Plan of the military compound at Holloway Street
Plan of the Roman military defences at Topsham
Plan of the Roman town c AD 75–150
Plan of the Roman town c AD 150–400
The hoard of coins found in St Thomas
Two Roman coins found at Heavitree House
A coin of Diocletian (obverse)
A coin of Diocletian (reverse)
A coin of Nero (reverse)
Coin of Nero found in Alphington Road (reverse)
An early Roman coin from Topsham Road (reverse)
Coins of Trajan
A Roman coin from Cowick Fields (obverse)
A Roman coin from Cowick Fields (reverse)
Roman coin found in Union Road (obverse)
Roman coin found in Union Road (reverse)
A Roman coin from Danes Castle (obverse)
A Roman coin from Danes Castle (reverse)
A Roman coin found near Ladysmith Road (obverse)
A Roman coin found near Hazel Road (obverse)
Roman coin from Silver Terrace
Plan of the town c 420–880
Plan of Exeter in the 11th century
A Byzantine coin from Pinhoe Road (obverse)
A Byzantine coin from Pinhoe Road (reverse)
Plan of the Norman city
Plan of the city c 1220–1540
Detail of the Hogenburg Map showing the Cathedral
Plan of Exeter c 1600
Plan of the City Defences
The Buck Brothers’ West Prospect of Exeter
The Buck Brothers’ view of the Quay 1736
The frozen Exe
Gandy Street from a window of the museum
Thomas Sharp’s view of Exeter from the North
Princesshay in the 1960s
Port Royal, Exeter
Cadbury’s, Marsh Barton
Near the Friars Walk, Exeter
Exeter in 1820
View of Exeter from St Leonard’s churchyard
Stoke Canon charter