Streets of Exeter - A to C

Streets A to C
Streets D to H
Streets I to O
Streets P to Z

Separate pages are starred *

Latest update 19th February 2008

Allhallows Court/Churchyard

This open park area marks the former church and burial yard of Allhallows-on-the-Wall. The city wall runs along one side, while two sides are bounded by Bartholomew Street West.

The area was known as Friernhay, after eight Franciscan monks built a friary in the early 13th-century. They moved to a site outside of the city in 1300. On St Bartholomew's Day 1637, the site was consecrated as a burial ground after Cathedral Yard was becoming dangerously full.

The original Allhallows-on-the-Wall church was situated at the bottom of Fore Street and was badly damaged by the Parliamentarians during the Civil War. Left derelict, it was eventually demolished to make way for New Bridge Street in 1770. A new Allhallows Church in the popular decorated Gothic style, was built in Bartholomew Yard in 1843 to a John Hayward design. In 1931 it was deconsecrated, and it became a corset factory and during the war it was used for making parachutes. The church was demolished in 1951, leaving a rather lovely green space, just above the city wall and the Catacombs.

Allhallows Court is a small court of apartments at the south west end of the old churchyard, opposite the former rear entrance of the Wheaton's printing works. These houses along with the Baptist Church and the houses running along the top of the city wall, and around the Snail Tower occupy the western part of the original burial ground.

Bailey Street

Situated between the High Street and Rougemont Castle, Bailey Street only came into existence in 1953 when Exeter was rebuilt after the war. The wall beneath the British Legion building, now the Timepiece, was underpinned and built up from below with concrete, as the new street was below the previous level. The whole was then faced in Heavitree stone.

Marks and Spencer was completed in 1951 on a site opposite Little Castle Street. Its construction was unusual for the time, in that the builders initiated an early version of 'just in time' delivery of materials, requiring no land for storage next to the site. In addition, all the site huts were sited on the building ground, making a very clean, and non disruptive construction.

The Castle Hotel had been destroyed by the bombing in the war, but some more buildings above blocked Bailey Street from joining with Castle Street. The buildings were demolished in 1959 and a large, wooden buttress was put in place to support the next standing building - many will remember the timbers covered with vegetation, until their removal and the addition of a retail store on the site. Initially, it opened as Monsoon, but it is now the jewellers, Michael Spiers. Because of the steep approach to Little Castle Street, care was taken to merge Bailey Street in a gentle slope.

The other end of Bailey Street, incorporating Bailey Street Square was not completed until 1964.

It was supposed to have been named Bailey Street because it ran along one side of the castle bailey. However, the Express and Echo reported in 1995, that it was named after Frank Bailey, father of Henry Preston Bailey.

It is now a service road for the rear of the High Street and gives access for vehicles to the City Library and the Castle.

Barbican Steps, City Wall

These steps in the corner of Allhallows Churchyard punch through the city wall and lead down to Exe Street and Bonhay Road, near the Mill on the Exe.

Further along the wall to the west was the Snail Tower, which was a 13th-century defensive tower, demolished in 1810. Along the wall to the east can be found the early Victorian Catacombs.

A barbican is an opening in a wall, or a stronghold. The steps emerge into the lane on the other side of the wall. Gravestones from the former graveyard are against the wall.

Baring Crescent     

Work started to build Baring Crescent on 3rd September 1818 with twelve houses completed by 1828. The development was by a Mr John Brown 'the projector of this extensive improvement to the city of Exeter'. They were described at the time as 'superior cottages' and have simple, if striking façades. The houses are built in a semi-circle with gardens, an access road and a communal pleasure garden in the front.

Vandals strike

In November 1852 the residents were disturbed by an act of vandalism in the crescent - "Disgraceful Conduct - On Monday evening some scoundrels broke the windows of several houses in Baring Crescent, by throwing stones from the Heavitree road. A reward of £10 was offered on Tuesday for such information as will lead to their conviction, and on the evening of that day the offence was repeated."

The residents of Baring Crescent were the well educated and cultured in the 19th-Century. Mr J W L Ashe was a professor of the pianoforte and musical entrepreneur. His daughter Miss Florence Ashe gave several recitals of the pianoforte at their house at no 11. Schubert appears to have been particularly popular, but she also offered Beethoven, Bach and Chopin to an appreciative audience in October 1868. No 12 Baring Crescent was home to Mrs Ellen Julia Hand who ran a ladies school from the house, while in 1890, Admiral and Mrs White entertained to raise funds for the seamen's' mission. In 1894, Lady Bowring lived at no 7, probably the last of the family to remain in the crescent bearing her family name.

In 1896, Exeter Fire Brigade ran their annual competition at Baring Crescent Field, Magdalen Road, which was designed to "encourage the firemen in their efforts in saving life and the speedy extinction of fire in the city." Races including sack races were part of the afternoon. Baring Crescent Fields had been the venue for an ice-skating rink during the 1870's, but  twenty years later the land had been given over to housing. Gradually Heavitree was being joined with Exeter and in September 1898, the process was hastened when Miss Holmes in Baring Crescent Villas sold the house and five or six acres to the Training College to allow it to expand.

Three of the houses were burnt out during the blitz and eight saved due to the prompt action of the fire watch. Ten houses survive, leaving a pleasant, if slightly austere semi-circle of houses with a private, semi-circular pleasure ground in front. Although described as 'cottages' they had eight bedrooms, a butlers pantry, wine and beer cellars, a housekeeper's room, a breakfast room, a dining room and two drawing rooms. Plus the usual kitchens and other workrooms.

The Barings Bank Fiasco

The crescent is named after Sir Thomas Baring; his grandfather, John Baring, a Lutheran migrated to Exeter from Bremen, Germany in 1717 and married Elizabeth Vowler, the daughter of a wealthy grocer; At his death in 1748, Baring was the wealthiest merchant in Exeter. His son expanded the Baring empire and established the world famous Baring Brothers Merchant Bank in London, which was, in 1995,  the victim of the infamous Nick Leeson, who bankrupted the firm for £1.3 billion through his share dealing in Singapore - Barings were sold for £1 to the Dutch ING, after 233 years of trading.

Bear Street 

Linking Cathedral Close and South Street, this narrow street is named after the Bear Inn which was the town house of the Abbots of Tavistock. In 1286, the town house of the Abbots was named Bere after the small peninsular of land formed by the Tamar and the Tavy rivers in west Devon. The Abbot of Tavistock was charged by Edward I to administer the silver mines that were situated there. The sign of the inn was a bear with the word Bere, and hence a pun. They seemed to like puns in those days! The Inn remained after the monasteries were dissolved by Henry VIII and was a centre for merchants to trade. A carrier service by Russell's was based at the site of the Bear Inn from before 1800, with heavily laden horse-drawn wagons bound for London departing at dawn, every day of the week. There was a second Bear Inn situated further up South Street from about 1820 to 1871.

Bear Street was very close to the public water conduit situated at the front of the College of the Vicars Choral; the ancient underground passages from St Sidwells fed the conduit with pure water. When the cholera outbreak of 1832 broke out, many from the other side of South Street, in the Westquarter were infected from water from dipping in the leats. Bear Street, although very short, only suffered two deaths from the disease, a result of their clean water supply.

On the marriage of the Prince of Wales in March 1863, the street erected celebratory decorations "Bear-street had a fine bold arch of evergreens, interspersed with coloured lamps, and surmounted by a fine transparency, with the words- "Albert Edward and Alexandra - Health and happiness," belonging to Mr. Hutchingson."

The street was widened from the top at Palace Street down to the last house fronting South Street in 1871, and in 1884, it was macadamized and a pavement created on the north side. Apart from the Bear Inn, the only other public house so far traced to Bear Street is the Crown and Anchor which had a change of licensee in 1873.

This list of occupants in 1897 indicate how few lived in Bear Street.

Bear street, South street to Deanery place.    
1 Loney Miss Emma, wardrobe dealer    
2 Phillips Miss E.crape cleanr    
2 Callaway Charles, tailor    
3 SiIbey Charles, boot maker    
5 Sibley Wra Chas. engraver

Bear Gate

The Bear Gate was situated at the opposite end of Bear Street (sometimes referred to as Bear Lane) and its position is marked with a small ring in the wall. It is thought that the gate had wooden doors and a simple pitched roof. A chamber was added over the gate by 1613, probably for the keeper. It was demolished in the Spring of 1813 and a certain Thomas Matthews paid the princely sum of £10 for the salvaged materials.

All the buildings dating back several hundred years, on the northern side of Bear Street at the Cathedral Yard end, were demolished in the 1930's. The Catholic Church of the Sacred Heart situated in South Street replaced the old Bear Inn in 1885, on the corner of South Street. On the opposite corner can be found a tree and shrubs, marking the site of the 14th Century Bear Tower which was demolished in January 1966.

Blackall Road

The first, embryonic attempt at a road on the line of the Blackall Road, next to the London and South Western Railway, was in February 1858 when the Street Committee considered a request for a 6ft footpath to be cut between Barrack Road and Hillscourt. Then, in February 1874, a request was considered to cut a road from the County Contabulary, at the prison to Barrack Road, alongside the railway line. In the event, Blackall Road was laid out as a private road, and in 1876, the City Council resolved to name the road Blackall Road. 

In 1877, the City Council widened the road at the Hillscourt end, and the first housing in the new road was completed. The Council proposed to widen and improve the road at a cost of £1,250 in 1882, and started to negotiate with two landowners. Mr Blackall declined to sell if the terms varied from an offer at the previous Streets Committee meeting. 

Mr S Jerred, who had been to court in 1873, regarding the ownership of some land and the Retreat public house in Howell Road, offered to sell to the Council, in January 1883, the land at a cost of 6d per foot, which the Council accepted, as they thought the improvement to Blackall Road would result in the value of the balance of the land increasing. Then in April of the same year, he changed his offer to sell two acres of land, the public-house and dwelling house for £4,500, which quite "took the breath away" from the committee. If that wasn't acceptable, they could purchase the land, less the buildings for 1s per foot. Quite what the outcome of these negotiations were, is not clear, but it would seem that the Council did eventually improve Blackall Road.

By 1897, the rest of the housing was built. However, all was not well for the inhabitants of Blackall Road, for in January 1899 they signed a memorial (petition) which was sent to the Town Clerk regarding the "Electric Light Works, increasing noise, vibration, and smoke in connection with the works, which had become a great nuisance, and a serious deterioration of their property." The works had been in existence since 1889, so one feels there was a touch of NIMBYism in the complaint. By 1905, the nuisance had gone away when the new Electricity Generating Station opened at Haven Banks and the New North Road works were closed.

During the Second War, No 6 and 7 Blackall Road were listed as a total loss after the May 1942 blitz, although there were no casualties recorded.

Bishop Blackall Girls' School was built in 1888, on land that belonged to the Episcopal Schools Trust. Opened as the Middle Class School for Girls, it became the Episcopal Modern School and finally, in 1934, Bishop Blackall School before closing. It is now an annexe of Exeter College.

Blackboy Road

This road is named after the Black Boy Inn which used to stand in the road. Royalists met at the inn, plotting the overthrow of Oliver Cromwell, and named it the after the future King Charles II, whose mother, Queen Henrietta Maria nicknamed him 'blackboy'. The name does not start to appear in the Flying Post until 1849, indicating a rename at this time.

Looking up Blackboy Road from the Sidwell Street, Old Tiverton Road roundabout the building on the right replaced a bomb damaged area - it was built for Sanderson's the wallpaper, and soft furnishing company. The pre 1942 line of the road runs parallel to the road from the roundabout for about 100 metres. Blackboy Road served as the main route out of Exeter to Taunton, Bristol and Bath, and was often referred to as the Bath Road.

The historian, Jenkins wrote of a fire in 1799 at the Blackboy Turnpike:

"On the 28th day of July a dreadful fire, which consumed thirteen houses, inhabited chiefly by poor weavers, happened (at) the Black Boy Turnpike, in-the parish of St Sidwell; occasioned by a brick kiln being erected-too near a large stack of furze, which taking fire, communicated itself to the adjoining houses. By this accident a number of poor families were reduced to great distress."

Blackboy Road had at least one brickworks with a boundary on the road. Horrell's brickworks was between Grosvenor Place and Silver Lane. After Mr Horrell died in 1849, it is probable that the works were taken over by Mr Hooper.

The Blackboy or Withyridge Tollgate was at the start of the Pinhoe Road, on the Polsloe Road side of the junction. It was removed after the turnpike trust expired in 1884. This end of Blackboy Road was also the terminus of the horse drawn tramway - the electric tramway continued as far as St Marks Church.

In 1873, the City of Exeter Improved Industrial Dwellings Company was formed for 'providing commodious and healthy dwellings for the poor classes'. The tenement Kendall's Building or the Improved Industrial Dwellings in Blackboy Road was built by the company in 1876, along with Mermaid Yard in the West Quarter. The Streets Committee considered, in 1879, a petition from the butchers in the eastern part of the city for a slaughter house to be provided in Blackboy Road to supplement the Exe Island slaughter house. After some deliberation, the committee turned the proposal down. The next year, they approved the expenditure of £45 to improve the roadway.

Rivalry between the City Council and the Urban District Council, Heavitree near Exeter, as they termed themselves, would sometimes emerge with ironic laughter at the Street Committee meetings. In 1900, such a moment occurred when Heavitree Council wrote to the City Council complaining of the "ponding of water at the junction of Polsloe-road with Blackboy-road" just inside the city boundary. "The Town Clerk said he was very glad to see that they were willing to confer with them on some subject. (Laughter)" It was only a few years since the tollgate was removed at this point, and the rather rural nature of the outer suburbs of the city are highlighted by the newspaper report.

In the first fatal bombing raid of the Second World War on Exeter on the 17th September 1940, four people were killed in Blackboy Road. See Blitz Casualties.

Bluecoat Lane

Situated between Post Office Street and Bedford Street, this small lane was a modern addition to the Princesshay development, and not completed until 1962. The entrance to the lane was the site of the original 16th century, Bedford House.

The site of St John's Hospital School, founded in 1636 in the buildings of a dissolved medieval hospital, stood close to this spot. It famously had a statue of a Blueboy at its entrance, and was locally known as the Bluecoat School. After the destruction of the school in the May 1942 bombing, the statue was moved to a place very close to its original position in Princesshay.

The photo of the side of the post office, was taken just before its demolition in May 2005. Bluecoat Lane has disappeared with the redevelopment.

Broadgate

This small street, linking the western end of Cathedral Yard with the High Street was the main gate into Cathedral Close when it was created in 1286, with the permission of Edward I. The Cathedral's scavenger (cleaner) lived in Broadgate.

During the age of the stage coach, Exeter's inns and hotels would compete for business by ensuring they were the terminus for prestigious services. The Royal Clarence was no exception, as it offered its clientele the Royal Bath and the London Mail services. Indeed, after a particularly frightening accident, in which a Clarence bound stage coach ran amok across the Close, after it clipped the narrow entrance of the Broadgate, the city authorities decided to demolish the old gate and ease the entrance.

While consideration was made for the removal of Broadgate, the Flying Post published two letters, for and against the destruction. The letter against modernisation had a nice turn of phrase:

"...can they (dignitaries of the church) silently look on, when Vandalic violence is threatened to Broadgate, the beautiful accompaniment and outwork of this very Cathedral?.... Exonians should be as proud of this ornament of their city, as Soldiers are of trophies and banners wrested from the enemy." It was signed One of the Old School.

The reply sounds as though the writer would have approved of the redeveloped Princesshay:

"Let me congratulate you, my polished fellow-citizens, on your zeal for improvement. .... To be sure they were well meaning people (forefathers): but ignorance made them prefer old Broadgate to a spruce milliner's shop, and the Painted East Window of St. Peter's Church, to the bow-window of Mr. C.'s tap room." Signed by Modernus. It just seems some modern controversies are really as old as the hills!

Work to remove the gate commenced on 28th December 1824 and the highway was reopened on the 28th February 1825. During the two months of demolition, the Defiance and other coaches that served the Clarence Hotel used the narrow Martins Lane. The building that is now Pizza Express was constructed on the corner. The Exeter Bank was extended to the High Street by demolishing the existing houses and shops adjoining the bank, in 1874.

By tradition, a new Bishop of Exeter is greeted by the Mayor at the Eastgate and escorted to Broadgate to be met by the Dean and Chapter, before they proceed to the Cathedral.

During 2005, Broadgate has been pedestrianised, and the entry of cars into the Close is restricted. The photo shows the post marking the gate and a commemorative plaque. Also see Broadgate in Areas.

Buddle Lane

Buddle Lane in St Thomas may have been named after the Budgell family who were landowners in St Thomas. William Budgell was admitted as a freeman to the city in 1564, along with a tailor named Thomas Budgell. Eustace Budgell also became a freeman in 1680 - he drowned himself in 1685 after a bequest of £2,000 in a will was set aside. He was facing ruin, as he had lost £20,000 in the South Sea Bubble

However, there is an alternate story behind the name - some say it was named after the springs of water that burst from holes in the road. It has also been known as Pound Lane after the cattle pound that was once present at one end of the lane; an advert, in 1876, for a cattle sale refers to a Farm Yard for the venue, probably the cattle pound. The area still had a number of substantial trees, for in 1892, an auction had two lots, of three elms, each lot for sale. The trees had already been felled, and were waiting collection by the side of the road.

There was a football ground off the lane in the 1890s where St Thomas held some of their home games. However, at that time, football could refer to rugby, for St Thomas beat St James 5 tries and several miners to 1 try and several miners in January 1889.

By 1900, the fingers of St Thomas were encroaching upon Buddle Lane, as Exeter's Street Committee recommended that a tender, from Mr J Pomeroy, for £424 14s to widen the footpaths of Buddle Lane and Dunsford Road be accepted.

The area became a place of expansion for Exeter when the City Council built 64 council houses in what was then a rural lane, in 1923.

The lane runs between Cowick Street and Okehampton Street, and contains the Green Gables Inn, built by the City Brewery in 1935, an a rather strange design which is a cross Dutch, Art-Deco. The inn was built on the land of the Broadmeadow estate.

Castle Street 

Little Castle Street

The old street that led from the High Street to Rougemont Castle was replaced by a wider, parallel street in 1772. The old street became Little Castle Street and the new cut, Castle Street.

The block of buildings between, was headed by the Castle Hotel at the lower end. It was lost during the May 1942 blitz. The scrap of bombed land was for many years the site of a huge wooden buttress, designed to support the building above. A rather attractive retail unit, that was initially occupied by the fashion store Monsoon, was built in the mid 1980's. It is now a jewellers. A city library was built in 1930 at a cost of £55,000 on the opposite side of Castle Street. It was burnt out, with the loss of a million county books and documents in the 1942 bombing, but was restored after the war.

A pub and restaurant called the Hole in the Wall can be found in the very narrow Little Castle Street - this street is the closest to how many streets would have looked in Exeter before the 20th century.

Catherine Street 

Catherine Gate

Apart from Little Stile, the Catherine Gate site is the least visible of the seven gates of the Cathedral Close. Indeed, since the refurbishment of the modern St Catherine's Square during 2005, there appears to be no reminder of the position of the gate.

St Catherine's Gate was situated by St Catherine's Chapel and had been marked by an iron ring in the retaining wall of the flower bed in St Catherine's Square. Before St Catherine's was built around about 1457, the gate was named Bickleigh or Berkly, a corruption of Ercevesk, because it was situated next to the house of Canon Ercevesk.

Catherine Street runs from the corner of Cathedral Close, by St Martin's Church to Bedford Street. Before 1942, it ran parallel to the High Street as far as Bampfylde Street. It was one of those thoroughfares that was laid out during the time of King Alfred in the 9th-century. Prior to 1942, it was a narrow congested street full of pubs, shops and small businesses. It took its name from St Catherine's Chapel that was on the corner of Egypt Lane. The ruins of the chapel remain as a memorial to the 1942 bombing.

During the 19th-Century it was a street in a not particularly good condition, with one concerned Exonian blaming the Dean and Chapter for its poor state, in 1840. In 1885, the Streets Committee voted to have the road surface metalled, thus covering over the ancient pebbles, and widening the footpaths, between Cathedral Yard and Bedford Street. One scheme, proposed by a member of the Streets Committee, was to extend Queen Street across the High Street by widening Martins Lane, cutting across Catherine Street and demolishing the Swan Inn and the houses that were on the site of the present Oddfellow's Hall, pushing past the rear of St Martins Church, through the gardens at the rear of the houses lining Cathedral Close, down as far as Southernhay. Suffice to say, it was not supported; it seems City Councillors have always been megalomaniacs.

Oddfellow's Hall, now housing a shoe shop and coffee shop, can also be found in Catherine Street. Opposite the church is the SPCK Bookshop, which dates from the 15th-century, and the only one remaining from several in the street. There is evidence that John Whytten, a mason signed an agreement to build them on 14th September 1404, for the cost of £6 6s 8d. They had all mod-cons with an indoor gardrobe on the first floor, for the convenience of the occupants. The houses were probably built to accommodate priests and were converted into shops in the 17th-century.

Some concession towards modernity was made, when Mr H E Williams opened the Devon Cycle Company at Nos. 40 and 41 Catherine Street in 1892. He offered a wide range of perambulators, mail carts, and invalid, Merlin and Spinal chairs, alongside the more conventional bicycles and tricycles, priced between £2 and £19 15s. His business evolved into the Devon Motor Works.

Cheeke Street

Named after the Cheeke or Chick family of St Sidwells, a prominent family of brewers from Elizabethan times onwards. The street was developed during the 19th-century on their land, as St Sidwells expanded with the burgeoning brick works in Newtown and Blackboy Road.

Despite Sidwell Street having 19 deaths from the cholera in 1832, Cheeke Street only suffered two. In 1832, the street was still relatively underpopulated, as it served the rear of many premises in Sidwell Street, and as a consequence, only two deaths from the disease were recorded. Twenty years later, the street had seen the development of the many courts which characterised the street later in the century.

In 1864, when there were two petitions, one to stop traffic entering from Paris Street as it was so narrow, and one to widen the entrance for traffic. The Streets Committee were not able to ascertain whether there was a right of way through the street. At the next meeting, after members had visited the street, they reported that once there had been posts placed to prevent traffic passing up the street at the entrance in Paris Street, and at one point, the found the roadway was only 5ft 9 inches (1.75 metres). The committee agreed to have a post fixed in place, but it was immediately removed, to be replaced by two more.

A year later, and there was an inquiry, with a jury into the matter of the post and the right of way. It was claimed that there had been a hinged post, but that it had been removed twenty years previously. The Bullers Arms and Poltimore Inn both had deliveries through Cheeke Street, and a fixed post would prevent this. The jury found for the defendants, who wanted free access. About 15 years later, the question of the post was revived after a child was crushed to death by a cart at the entrance to Cheeke Street from Paris Street. In the same year, plans were drawn up to widen the carriageway to 30 ft.

The people of Gill's Court were the lucky recipients of a scheme to provide toilet amenities, in 1898, when the Sanitary Committee agreed to engage Messrs. A S Rowe to construct a facility at a cost of £6 10s.

There was a Cheeke Street School on the corner of Paris Street which, in 1871, had 53 boys and 41 girls enrolled. It was a mixed school, supported by the Plymouth Brethren, who had refused Government funding. By 1880, the school roll was 123. The school eventually became the Elim Church.

Nos. 6 and 7 Cheeke Street sold for £170, the pair, in 1892.

The modern Cheek Street does not follow the old line, as the whole area was raised to the ground during the 1942 bombing. It runs from Sidwell Street down to the Paris Street roundabout. The new Vue cinema acts as a full stop when looking down Cheeke Street from Sidwell Street. One side of the bus station fronts Cheeke Street and is the main entrance for buses and coaches.

Chute Street

The unfortunate inhabitants of Chute Street live in a street whose name is a corruption of the Saxon word, Shyte. A brook ran down the street which was used, from the Saxon times, to carry away sewage. It became known as Shytebrook or later on Shitbrook, and ran past the bottom of Paris Street, which was once called Shytebrook Street. It emerged at the river in Larkbeare, near Colleton Hill. The brook was covered over in 1843 and carries only drain water, leaving its previous contents to be carried away in modern sewers.

The earliest reference to Chute Street in the Flying Post appears in an advert May 1857, when Nos. 1 and 3 Chute Street are offered for sale at auction. It was noted that No. 1 was presently used as a chapel. By 1861, the newly erected Nos. 13 and 14 were for sale. The housing in the area seems to follow the pattern in many towns at the time, speculatively built, over a period of years, in small batches of two or so dwellings, until there were enough to warrant building on a larger scale.

The roadway of Chute Street and Parr Street were privately owned, because the housing was newly built and the Council had not yet adopted it. By 1865, complaints were being made at the state of the surface, but the Council would only consider maintenance if the roads were brought up to standard first. An application for a licence for a beer house named the Victoria Inn mentioned that 230 houses had been constructed in the street and surrounds during the previous two years. Another application for a licence for a beer house named the Blue Ball that opened in 1863 was considered in 1864.

Much of the housing in Newtown was built for artisans, and a growing army of clerks and shop assistants. And yet, in 1875, an advert appeared that seems out of place for Chute Street:

"Wanted, as Butler, by a tall, elderly, active man, or as experienced attendant on invalids. R.S.T., No.2, Chute-street, Clifton-road, Exeter." It would be interesting to find out the back story on that.

In 1893, at an auction at the Windsor Castle Inn, Summerland Street, no. 9 Chute Street sold for £107 10s.

Cricklepit Lane, Street

Not always known as Cricklepit, this lane was once the eastern end of Rackclose Lane. It became Cricklepit Lane in 1868, when memories of the rackfields on Shilhay where fading. John Gendall drew an illustration of the Cricklepit end of Rackclose Lane in 1848 for Thomas Shapter's History of the Cholera; it shows children playing amongst the pigeons, ducks, chickens and pigs, all squeezed into a narrow lane of hovels on one side and city wall on the other.

Gendall's drawing really gives some idea of the state of the street, but it can deceive, There were 11 deaths from the cholera, certainly not one of the highest rates in the city; 43 died in Preston Street and the very short Stepcote Hill had 15 deaths. Forty years after the cholera outbreak, Cricklepit Lane was still a street at risk of disease, and in January 1872 there was a case of typhoid reported in the lane of an unvaccinated child, who died as a result.

Where there is poverty and deprivation, there follows organisations pledged to help, both materially and spiritually. The Westquarter saw several missions and religious organisations in the late 19th-Century, most advocating temperance. The Exeter Christian Mission ran the Cricklepit Mission Hall, with services every Sunday, and out of doors meetings in the streets of the Westquarter.

Cricklepit derives from crickenpette, meaning pit or hollow beneath the cliffs and creic, an old word for rock or crag. Nicholas Gervase was granted in 1180 to 1190 by Robert de Courtenay the right to all the water flowing between the corn mills of Thomas the Miller and Crickenpette. Despite at least five fulling mills lining the leat below Cricklepit/Rackclose Lane, Cricklepit Mill had always been a corn mill.

In the 1960's, most of the leat was culverted and Cricklepit Mill of Messrs French was the only remaining mill, of the many mills, that once lined the leat and helped to make Exeter rich on serge production. The suspension bridge with the same name was built in 1988.

Ewings Lane appears to have been referred to as Cricklepit Lane in the early part of the 1850s.