The North Gate

The North Gate of the city was not on the same scale as the great East and South Gates, but it was the entrance for goods and travellers from North Devon. The gate had two guard-rooms with orillons for the defenders to fire their arrows when the gate was under attack. The interior was used as a public house which was named Hell due to its darkness. It was demolished in June 1769.

The North Gate was the scene of several attempts to seize the city. In 1497, Perkin Warbeck, an imposter who claimed he was the youngest son of Edward IV and therefore the rightful heir, landed in Cornwall, from Cork, Ireland. He recruited an army of supporters and ten days later, appeared at the North Gate of the city in his attempt to usurp the throne from Henry VII. Warbeck burnt the North Gate, but the citizens fed the flames with extra fuel and dug a ditch behind, making entry into the city impossible. He eventually managed to storm the city through the East Gate, but fled to Taunton when he heard that Edward Courtenay, the Earl of Devon was approaching.

There were several important coaching inns that terminated services below the North Gate, because the roadway was too steep for horse drawn vehicles to enter the city through the gate. The Barnstaple Inn was probably the most prominent, although the Falcon Inn stood "near the site of the ancient Northgate." There was a cold bath by the gate, supplied by a spring that flowed ".. from under the City walls", which was re-discovered in 1880, during an excavation of buildings in the area. Alexander Jenkins wrote rather enigmatically that the bath was "... much frequented by the female Jews."

In the mid eighteenth century, when Methodism was spreading, the Methodists second meeting place in the city was in a room over the North Gate, presumably right above Hell.

At the city end of the Iron Bridge is a stone which was placed there in 1897 for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, on which is inscribed: 

Attached to the stone is a tall pole with a weather vane in the shape of a Wyvern or gilded dragon with a long, curly tail. The Wyvern was the original weather vane that was over the North Gate before it was demolished in June 1769 and moved to the roof of the Wharfinger's Office, on the Quay. 

In 1975, the Civic Society paid for it to be moved back to the site of the North Gate where it was placed on the top of the pole. It supposedly has dents in it, where bullets from the English Civil War hit home - Exeter was a Royalist stronghold for much of this period and the city sustained a long siege from the Parliamentarians.

Source: Flying Post, Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries, Alexander Jenkins, and Nonconformity in Exeter 1650-1875 by Allan Brockett..