Buildings and Structures of Exeter A to N

21, the Mint *
84 Longbrook Street (Harry's)
Bampfylde House *
Bedford House *
Bluemaids Hospital School *
City Wall
Cricklepit Mill *
Customs House
Deane Clark House *
Devon & Exeter Institution *
Eastgate and Eastgate House
Eastgate Arcade *
Guildhall *
Harlequins Centre
Heavitree City Hospital *
Higher Barracks *
Higher Market *
House That Moved *
Kings Wharf on the Quay
Larkbeare House *
Longbrook House (Rockfield) *
Magdalen Lepers Hospital *
Mols Coffee House *

Harrys, 84 Longbrook Street, Harry Hems Workshop

Designed for Harry Hems, the church sculptor and woodcarver, this building was the employment place for 100 workers, producing carvings and furniture, stained glass and memorials. It was completed in 1882.

The architect was Robert Medley Fulford (1845-1910) who produced a building of three storeys that also served to show off the best of Hems work, with stained glass, decorative leadwork and gothic detailing, all in the Hems style.

Harry Hems was apprenticed to a Sheffield sculptor and went on to produce work for the Foreign Office and the Langham Hotel. He then travelled through Italy gaining further experience. When Hems arrived pennyless in Exeter railway station, during 1866, he found a horseshoe in the road and took this as a token of luck. The Royal Albert Memorial Museum was being constructed at this time and Hems gained employment producing carvings. He kept the horseshoe and had it mounted above the central pink granite column at the front of 84 Longbrook Street.

By the time he commissioned his new workshop in Longbrook Street, Harry Hems had worked on 400 churches and 100 public buildings. There are many examples of his work around Exeter - one such is the Livery Dole Martyrs memorial in Denmark Road. Harry Hems moved into Fairpark, a large, end house with a turret, next door to his workshop and died on 5th January 1916. His grave is in the Higher Cemetery.

City Wall

Although no longer complete, and with all the city gates removed by 1819, the city wall is still an interesting and prominent feature of Exeter.

Circling the city for one and a third miles, the wall was an important feature from Roman to medieval times. The early, Roman parts are best viewed from Eastgate, along the side of Southernhay. The mix of purple to grey volcanic stone from around Rougemont and the rich, red Heavitree sandstone are very striking.

The Royalist defenders of Exeter in the Civil War of the 1640's led to the defences of the wall being strengthened. The ditch on the outside of the wall was deepened during 1642 and widened and a further line of defence outside of that added. Gun batteries were added at the gates. In Southernhay, house bricks have been used to repair the wall, where the defenders had made holes in it for guns and near South Gate, there are traces of crenellation from the same period. After the Civil War city walls became ineffective against more modern artillery and tactics.

A gap in the wall by the Cathedral is spanned by the delicate, cast iron, Burnet Patch Bridge. It was erected around about 1814 so that the Mayor, could regularly inspect the wall without interruption.

The wall at the Eastgate end of Southernhay dates from the 13th century.

The Customs House

This handsome building, situated on the quay, dates from 1680-81. It was built next to the Watergate, placing it well for controlling the importing of goods and assessing them before they were transported into the city. Designed by North Devon builder, Richard Allen, it is thought to be the oldest, large brick building still surviving in Exeter. H M Customs and Excise used it until 1989, to monitor goods imported to the quay for customs duty. Originally, the arches at the front were open, allowing goods to be stored out of the rain. The building has some fine interior plaster ceilings produced by North Devonian, John Abbot (1639-1727). He was paid £35 for three ceilings which are some of the finest of their type in the country. One, in the surveyors room, has an octagonal centre piece surrounded by plaster flowers and ribbons and a variety of outer panels.

On the ground floor, behind the arches, was installed a large Kings Stove, used to burn contraband goods.

Celia Fiennes described the Custom House thus:

".... just by this key is the Custom House, an open space below with rows of pillars which they lay in goods just as its unladen out of the ships in case of wet, just by are several little rooms for Land-waiters, etc., then you ascend up a handsome pair of stairs into a large room full of desks and little partitions for the writers and accountants, its was full of books and files of paper, by it are two other rooms which are used in the same way when there is a great deal of business;"

In the front of the building, are two cannon originally thought to have been used at the battle of Waterloo - however, they were two of a batch that had been sold to Russia in 1789 to arm their fleet, at Archangel. They were returned to England after Napoleon was defeated, as they were then obsolete, with a view to using four on the Wellington Memorial, in Somerset. Fifteen were shipped to Exeter Quay in 1819. The committee overseeing the memorial, discovered that they had not been used at Waterloo and refused to take them. After five years of storage, the City Council decided to sell them to pay for their storage. They were not sold - four were used as bollards at the quay and the rest buried.

In the early 20th century the cannons were excavated and four mounted at the Wellington Memorial. During the Second World War these cannon were melted for scrap, leaving the Exeter cannon the only ones to survive. Eventually, the cannon were removed from the quay, one given to the Wellington Memorial and two mounted and placed in the front of the Custom House.

Eastgate and Eastgate House

The recent demolition of Eastgate House on the corner of the High Street and Paris Street is just the latest chapter in the history of the Eastgate.

It was the Romans who built the city wall with its four gates. The Eastgate was always considered to be the second most important after the Southgate. By the time of King Athelstan, the cities defences had crumbled - he strengthened the wall and presumably the gates as well.

William the Conqueror laid siege to the city from the Eastgate, and had to undermine the walls, before the citizens would surrender to him. Another royal rebellion, by Perkins Warbeck in 1497 who claimed that he should have the throne as he was the younger of the Princes in the Tower, was repelled by the Courtenay's in the High Street, after he broke down the Eastgate. The King, Henry VII, stayed at Exeter soon after, to deal with the rebels, and presented the city with his 'hatt of mayntenunce' and sword to be bourne through the streets as in the Citie of London.

The gate was completely rebuilt in 1511-13 after the damage caused by Warbeck's siege and a statue of Henry VII was placed over the arch to commemorate the event. The Eastgate was used for a time as a tavern called the Salutation. It was in 1784 that the old gate was finally taken down to allow easier access to the High Street.

Eastgate House

The Eastgate House that was demolished in 2005 had its seeds in a building dating back to the 1930's. The Co-op built a modern structure of concrete, on the site of the old Cathedral Dairy. Alongside, in the High Street was the 19th-century Eastgate Arcade, that stretched to Southernhay. The blitz of 1942 destroyed all the surrounding buildings, but the Co-op miraculously survived. It was said that the firewatchers flung the incendaries off the roof to land on the Arcade, which was destroyed as a consequence. A report at the time stated:

"There, fire guards were able, in this modern Co-operative Society Building, to tackle the I.B. as they fell. The fire guards were stationed on the concrete roof, and not only were they able to deal with all their I.B.s, but kept the building intact....".

When the High Street was rebuilt in the 1950's, the Co-op building was refurbished and enlarged and named Eastgate House.

Harlequins Centre - Paul Street

An unattractive, modern 'American' style mall of 32 shops, that is also a carpark. It forms one side of the canyon that is the sad fate of Paul Street. Designed by Bruges Tozer of Bristol at a total cost of £6 million in 1987, it attempts to link itself to the Guildhall Centre with a pedestrian bridge over Paul Street. The lower level of retail units has never been satisfactory, with a variety of businesses, including fast food outlets, art galleries and supplies, fashion, antiques and now furniture, all in an open fronted market style space. It always seems dull and empty, probably because it never seems to lead anywhere.

The corner of Queen Street houses Chandni Chowk, an ethnic furniture and interior design shop. The old Official Information Bureau was once on this site. A single storey building with mock timber work and cream panelling, it fronted the old bus and coach station. The bus station was created when the area between Paul Street and the city wall was cleared in 1921 to 1925. Before that, a variety of houses and terraces occupied the area.

King's Wharf on the Quay

These two prominent warehouses on the quay were built in 1834 and 1835 following the enlargement of the canal and the construction of the canal basin in 1830 by James Green. The Warehouses' acted as the backdrop for a 19th century Liverpool Dock in the BBC's Onedin Line in the 1970's.

In September 1988 they were converted into prestigious office accommodation with a glass walled atria and hydraulically driven lift, bridging the gap between the buildings.

Pre-cast reinforced concrete was used for the staircase, fixed directly to the existing structures. The architect responsible was Lucas, Roberts and Brown Partnership. The ground floor space is used for retail, as a centre for hiring bicycles and canoes and the Waterside pub and pizza house.

The grey warehouse on the left was originally designed and built by Robert Cornish the Younger in 1834. It is constructed of Pocombe limestone from Torquay. In 1972, the building was the reception area for the Maritime Museum before it was converted into luxury apartments.

The warehouse on the right was built a year later, in 1835 from red Heavitree sandstone, by Messrs. Hooper. Between each of the five bays is a thicker buttressing which was designed to carry the iron cranes that could be swung out and used to haul goods to the upper floors.

A plaque on the wall of one reads: