Bartholomew Street

This street is named after Bartholomew's Yard, opened on St Bartholomew's Day 24th August 1636, by Bishop Hall. Samuel Izacke wrote almost a hundred years late, in 1731 of the event thus:

'A new Church-yard, 24 August, Saint Bartholomew's Day, was here solemnly consecrated by Bifhop Hall, a piece of Ground formerly called Friern-hay, lying within the Walls of the said City, and in the West quarter thereof,' which said Ground was given by the City, and levelled and inclosed by the concurrent Charge of both Church and City, by the Care and Vigilance of the Mayor.'

The old cemetery at Cathedral Yard was full and becoming a health hazard, thus requiring a new burial yard in the city. The City Chamber agreed to forgo £13 a year rent for its rack-fields at Friernhay. The Cathedral authorities provided £150 towards establishing the burial yard, which originally stretched  down to the Snail Tower, and the city wall overlooking Exe Island.

The land of Bartholomew's Yard was originally given to the monks of St Nicholas Priory by William I and named Fryers-hays. A Franciscan Friary was established there in the 13th-century, which was moved to land outside the Southgate in the early 14th century and which was also, confusingly, known as Friernhay.

As already mentioned, the area was previously used for rack-fields to dry the serge from the fulling mills below, on the leats. Prior to that, up to Saxon times, the whole area was called Little Britayne and was probably a camp, with a lookout, at the point where the Snail Tower was built in the 13th-century. The new cemetery was renamed Allhallows-on-the-Wall and the street running past, became Bartholomew Street. A church was built in the nineteenth century at the southern end of the burial yard, named All Hallows on the Wall. It became a corset factory and then a parachute factory in the Second War, before it was demolished in 1951.

Elsewhere in Bartholomew Street

At the Northgate end of Bartholomew Street between the City Gate Hotel and Gino's is a strip of grass - here, built on the city wall could be found a terrace of 12 almhouses, known as Lant's Almshouses, dating from 1765. They were demolished in 1959 for road widening.

An ale house on the present site of the Hub, on the corner of Mary Arches Street, was first recorded as the London Ale House in 1816. It was demolished for road widening, and rebuilt and been known as the Mitre, The Exhange and Three Fat Fish before it became the Hub in 2006. In 1958, the landlord, Reg Bowden, was relocated to the Spirit Vaults in South Street while the London Ale House was demolished for road widening. Reg Bowden moved back to the rebuilt pub, now named the Mitre after a couple of years.

At the turn of the 20th century, St Olave's Rescue Home for Girls and St Wilfred's Home for Aged Women could be found five doors apart facing the burial yard. The handsome buildings are still there, converted into apartments and flats. On the corner, close to the West Wall can still be found the Bartholomew's Street Baptist Church, which is still serving as a place of Christian worship.

The pig market was also located at the lower end of the street, close to the junction with Fore Street.

Source: Izacke's Antiquities of the City of Exeter, Kelly's Directories, Two Thousand Years of Exeter by W G Hoskins, and Exeter 1540-1540 by MacCaffrey.