Trev as much as I love your hiking and camp out videos this was really fantastic one to watch what a cool tour of the city, your going to have to do more of these when everything returns to the new normal
Thanks Craig - I have been sitting on this footage for ages, now seemed like the ideal time to share, so I am really glad that you enjoyed it. Plenty of history in the UK, so yeah, maybe I will take some more historical walks soon... i hope. Thanks for watching!
Happy nostalgic memories of my childhood. Some helpful info; - In the back streets behind High Street, the bit of wall you've highlighted (just before entering Northernhay Place) is NOT technically part of the city walls, although one local theory is that it was built with the remains of the East Gate after it was demolished. Interestingly, at the top of Northernhay Place itself, you missed a big stretch of the wall at the back of the car park. That's the line of the wall as aligned to East Gate off the High Street. Anything not on that line is NOT really part of the city walls. The City Wall is part of the backs of the buildings going up Northernhay Place. The 'Gatehouse" in Northernhay Gardens is a turret called 'King John's Tower.' It was added early-13th Century to the bit of wall protecting the castle to make the defences more flexible. King John was terrified that the French Dauphin was about to overthrow him as King of England, and so wanted the defences of his key cities at their optimum. That information board in Northernhay is stretching the truth, as there is ample evidence that there was a fortified settlement on the site of Exeter for at least 250 years before the Romans arrived. It even used the same Fore-Street-High-Street-Sidwell-Street 'spine' as its main roadway. Its name in the local British dialect was "Caerwysc", translating as "Fort on the river." The turret you walk into at 2:25 is sometimes mistakenly referred to as 'Athelstan's Tower'. Now to be fair, the Anglo-Saxon King Athelstan *did* build a tower on the site of the later castle, as it was the highest point of the city at that time, and was a fine look-out point to watch for Viking attacks. A lot of people therefore think the turret is what remains of the tower. But no, it's actually a defence turret built as part of the castle during the reign of William The Conqueror. The last remnant of Athelstan's Tower was demolished when the Norman Castle was rebuilt in the 18th Century. You missed another long stretch of the City Walls on Paul Street. The back wall of the car park behind the Harlequin Centre, all the way to the Iron Bridge, is part of the original city wall, and the arched doorway from Maddock's Row takes you right through it (although that doorway was cut into the wall centuries later). 4:27 you can see the entrance to Haldon Road - see the pinkish building to the left of and in the distance behind the weathervane - on St. David's Hill. That's where I lived as a youngster! You're absolutely right that that crossroads between North Street/Bartholomew Street/Paul Street/Iron Bridge is not very pleasant. They used to be lined with rather elegant Georgian-style shops, but most of them were demolished in the 1970s to make way for that ghastly shopping centre and the hideous multi-storey car park that now dominate the scene. Unforgivable. On Bartholomew Street, you can see more of the wall by nipping into the cemetery to the right. (It also offers a wonderful view across the Longbrook Valley towards St. Michael's Church and Mount Dinham. The Roman Wall is essentially the back wall of the Exe Street Cemetery, and what's more, it includes a fascinating feature unique to this corner of the city - The Catacombs. A bizarre trend among the well-to-do in Victorian England included a fascination with ancient Egypt, and some took it to such an extreme that they decided that when they died, they wanted to be buried in a Pharoah-style grave. They had the Catacombs built as their own final resting place, and some of the graves can still be seen inside. (Catch a Red Coat tour from the Cathedral to get to see the interior.) When you step onto Bartholomew Terrace, you are actually walking ON TOP of the wall itself, a little like can be done in York or Chester. The Snayle Tower was not at the site of that modern roadway. It was about thirty yards further back up the pathway of Bartholomew Terrace. There's an odd iron construction on the wall marking where the Tower used to be. I think they originally planned to create a full monument there but couldn't get the right materials for it, so they left the 'bare bones' on the site. It's now sadly gone rusty. Behind it there's a private house, and it's also called 'Snayle Tower' in tribute to the original. It's such a shame they destroyed most of West Street to create that awful by-pass, not least because the noise of the traffic has completely destroyed the peaceful context of this last remnant of the old West Quarter. The House That Moved was originally known simply as "The Merchant's House," and was located on the corner of Frog Street and old Edmund Street - see next para. (Frog Street was a narrow lane lined with ancient houses, all now demolished, with the lane converted into the stretch of by-pass that runs in front of the West Gate). The original site for the House is therefore near the steps leading down onto the Medieval Exe Bridge. The Medieval Bridge, you may notice, is perfectly aligned with the position of the West Gate and Stepcote Hill. Until New Bridge Street was constructed at the foot of Fore Street, this was effectively the only real entrance to Exeter from the west, hence why it pointed to the West Gate. Until West Street was established, Stepcote Hill had been the only way up to the city centre from the west. Now, this is the bit you may not believe; the ruin of the bridge may look like it has stood preserved on that spot for centuries, but it hasn't, at least not in the sense of being a tourist landmark. It remained a secondary entry point from the west well into the second half of the 20th Century. THE BRIDGE ACTUALLY WAS EDMUND STREET, and it was still tarmacked over and lined with houses and shops as recently as 1963! Cars were still driving up and down it just a couple of years before England won the World Cup. That whole meadow was in fact full of houses and works premises until the by-pass was built in the 1960s, and the Church tower attached to the bridge - St. Edmund's Church - was still fully intact and still running services until just a few weeks before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. The reason it's ruined is not age, but it was destroyed by a fire in 1969, while all the other buildings were removed to make it easier to construct the by-pass. Those stone structures you can see over the side of the bridge include the foundations of the old church and the remains of the cellars of slum houses that were still occupied years after World War II ended. The bridge, which had stood as a crossing for the older, wider River Exe from the 12th to the 17th centuries, had turned into the foundation for Edmund Street, and could still have remained in use as a main road today had different decisions been made. (There was a popular local pub attached to the Bridge called The Teignmouth Inn, but it was mercilessly pulled down in 1960. Most of the families living in the area were moved to new builds in parishes like Wonford and Exwick. The hill of Exwick is covered in houses today, but was almost completely undeveloped until the war.) Rather than walking up by the noisy Western Way, I recommend finding the steps that lead down to a footpath that runs past Cricklepit Mill - looking uphill, they are at a gap in the fence by the right hand pavement. Once on the footpath, the wall to your left as you walk is a long stretch of the old City Wall, and includes damage caused by cannonballs fired at it in the Civil Wars. The Mill is also worth checking out, and the footpath still leads neatly into the Quay. TRIVIA FACT: The BBC filmed episodes of 'The Onedin Line' at Exeter Quay in the 1970s. If you look at the road surface at the foot of South Street, you can see that red-and-yellow-coloured bricks have been used to mark the approximate position and lay-out of the old South Gate. MORE TRIVIA: When the Gate was used as a prison, prisoners had to pay for their food. If they had none, what they would sometimes do is take off a shoe, and hang it on the outside from the bars of their cell windows, and hope passersby would take pity on them and put money in the shoes for them to pay the gaoler for food. It is believed by some that this may be the Exeter-based origin of the expression, "Living on a shoestring budget." 8:50 - the little black door in the Wall leads into the garden of the Bishop's Palace, the luxury mansion of many Bishops of Exeter dating back to Medieval times, and directly next to the Cathedral. The Palace can be accessed, again, by joining a Red Coat Tour, and it includes a lovely excursion through the garden. The Gatehouse of the Palace can be seen on a side street called, fittingly enough, 'Palace Gate' near the foot of South Street. The extra 'turret' off Southernhay may look like another King John's Tower, but it's a fake; it's a Georgian Folly added around 1912, and no one is completely sure why it was built. It may just have been to 'balance' King John's Tower on the opposite side of the old city.
I lived in Exeter for a year '89/'90. & have only fond memories. The 'Ship Inn', a stone's throw from the cathedral, was a regular watering hole.......for the 'ye ole world' atmosphere you understand. 😁 The quayside, pretty new back then, was a magical place, spending a sunny summer afternoon down there was like being on holiday. Exeter has no doubt changed a bit since then but it sems to have maintained a lot of it's charm.👍
Funny how many viewers have lived in Exeter at one time or another. It is a great town, and this walled walk was a good way to see so much that I hadn't before. Thanks for watching. All the best!
@@SummitOrNothing It is a beautiful city, although tragically nowhere near as beautiful as it was before the war. The city was extensively bombed by the Luftwaffe, destroying large stretches of the city centre, especially the High Street, Fore Street, South Street and Sidwell Street, and after the war ended, the City Council used that as a pretext to pull down most of what remained to make room for road-widening. (Only a fraction of the buildings standing in Exeter at the start of the 20th Century were still standing at the start of the 21st.) This is why the High Street has that funny appearance today, with the Lower High Street taking on an old-fashioned, very narrow, lane-like appearance, and the road suddenly doubling in width and taking on a modern architectural style about halfway along its length. That point where the street suddenly widens was simply the point where the fires caused by German incendiary bombs came to a halt. It's also why the buildings on South Street and Sidwell Street all look so samey, characterless and basic. Once the roads had been widened, the council decided to replace the buildings destroyed in the war with anything cheap. (Please don't believe the urban myth that the evil ol' Germans were to blame for the death of the old city, by the way. The Council demolished far more than the German bombers ever managed to hit.) It's still a lovely city, and it's still a place I love, but oh, it was once so very much more!
I know Exeter fairly well Trev due to having family nearby but I tend to take the place a bit for granted. Thanks for reminding me what an interesting and striking city it is. I shall look at it with fresh eyes next time. Hope all is good mate. Rich.
Yea, I had walked down the high-street next to this wall so many times, it wasn't until we did a treasure trail with the kids that it bought my attention to it. Thanks for watching!
Great video Trev very informative, I love this sort of history, very similar to a place called Chester not far from me, uncanny that a lot of the place names are similar. Probably a roman thing. Keep em coming 😁😁
Cheers Steve - glad that you enjoyed the video - something a bit different, but I quite enjoyed the change to be honest. And yeah, I bet a lot of our cities and towns have very similar histories. Take it easy!
Aw right up my street this with the history! Didn’t know this was here! Amazing! Been sending my films to my John Lewis google plus site as my colleagues been asking for them as they find them reassuring. Been quite a reaction actually bud. Very moving so just like you do, I’m going to get them out so to speak to the wonderful places we’ve been lucky enough to go. Stay safe Paul
That sounds great, Paul. It's all about encouraging others to get up and out to these fantastic sites. Glad that you enjoyed the video mate. Hope you're keeping well. Cheers.
Cheers Dean - was a bit different, and a walk I always wanted to do. Yeah, when I was editing this I couldn't help think how at that time we had no idea what was around the corner. Weird, really. Thanks for watching, and take care where you are, bud!
Trev as much as I love your hiking and camp out videos this was really fantastic one to watch what a cool tour of the city, your going to have to do more of these when everything returns to the new normal
Thanks Craig - I have been sitting on this footage for ages, now seemed like the ideal time to share, so I am really glad that you enjoyed it. Plenty of history in the UK, so yeah, maybe I will take some more historical walks soon... i hope. Thanks for watching!
I agree with this. The voiceovers add a lot to the footage. Nice one Trev. 👍
@@linedwell Thanks very much. Glad that you enjoyed it 😁
I live in Exeter as I've done all my life It's a wonderful city and I'm proud to be an exonion. Thanks for the video.
That's awesome! Glad that you enjoyed the video!
I too used to be an onion
Happy nostalgic memories of my childhood. Some helpful info; -
In the back streets behind High Street, the bit of wall you've highlighted (just before entering Northernhay Place) is NOT technically part of the city walls, although one local theory is that it was built with the remains of the East Gate after it was demolished. Interestingly, at the top of Northernhay Place itself, you missed a big stretch of the wall at the back of the car park. That's the line of the wall as aligned to East Gate off the High Street. Anything not on that line is NOT really part of the city walls. The City Wall is part of the backs of the buildings going up Northernhay Place.
The 'Gatehouse" in Northernhay Gardens is a turret called 'King John's Tower.' It was added early-13th Century to the bit of wall protecting the castle to make the defences more flexible. King John was terrified that the French Dauphin was about to overthrow him as King of England, and so wanted the defences of his key cities at their optimum.
That information board in Northernhay is stretching the truth, as there is ample evidence that there was a fortified settlement on the site of Exeter for at least 250 years before the Romans arrived. It even used the same Fore-Street-High-Street-Sidwell-Street 'spine' as its main roadway. Its name in the local British dialect was "Caerwysc", translating as "Fort on the river."
The turret you walk into at 2:25 is sometimes mistakenly referred to as 'Athelstan's Tower'. Now to be fair, the Anglo-Saxon King Athelstan *did* build a tower on the site of the later castle, as it was the highest point of the city at that time, and was a fine look-out point to watch for Viking attacks. A lot of people therefore think the turret is what remains of the tower. But no, it's actually a defence turret built as part of the castle during the reign of William The Conqueror. The last remnant of Athelstan's Tower was demolished when the Norman Castle was rebuilt in the 18th Century.
You missed another long stretch of the City Walls on Paul Street. The back wall of the car park behind the Harlequin Centre, all the way to the Iron Bridge, is part of the original city wall, and the arched doorway from Maddock's Row takes you right through it (although that doorway was cut into the wall centuries later).
4:27 you can see the entrance to Haldon Road - see the pinkish building to the left of and in the distance behind the weathervane - on St. David's Hill. That's where I lived as a youngster! You're absolutely right that that crossroads between North Street/Bartholomew Street/Paul Street/Iron Bridge is not very pleasant. They used to be lined with rather elegant Georgian-style shops, but most of them were demolished in the 1970s to make way for that ghastly shopping centre and the hideous multi-storey car park that now dominate the scene. Unforgivable.
On Bartholomew Street, you can see more of the wall by nipping into the cemetery to the right. (It also offers a wonderful view across the Longbrook Valley towards St. Michael's Church and Mount Dinham. The Roman Wall is essentially the back wall of the Exe Street Cemetery, and what's more, it includes a fascinating feature unique to this corner of the city - The Catacombs. A bizarre trend among the well-to-do in Victorian England included a fascination with ancient Egypt, and some took it to such an extreme that they decided that when they died, they wanted to be buried in a Pharoah-style grave. They had the Catacombs built as their own final resting place, and some of the graves can still be seen inside. (Catch a Red Coat tour from the Cathedral to get to see the interior.)
When you step onto Bartholomew Terrace, you are actually walking ON TOP of the wall itself, a little like can be done in York or Chester.
The Snayle Tower was not at the site of that modern roadway. It was about thirty yards further back up the pathway of Bartholomew Terrace. There's an odd iron construction on the wall marking where the Tower used to be. I think they originally planned to create a full monument there but couldn't get the right materials for it, so they left the 'bare bones' on the site. It's now sadly gone rusty. Behind it there's a private house, and it's also called 'Snayle Tower' in tribute to the original.
It's such a shame they destroyed most of West Street to create that awful by-pass, not least because the noise of the traffic has completely destroyed the peaceful context of this last remnant of the old West Quarter.
The House That Moved was originally known simply as "The Merchant's House," and was located on the corner of Frog Street and old Edmund Street - see next para. (Frog Street was a narrow lane lined with ancient houses, all now demolished, with the lane converted into the stretch of by-pass that runs in front of the West Gate). The original site for the House is therefore near the steps leading down onto the Medieval Exe Bridge.
The Medieval Bridge, you may notice, is perfectly aligned with the position of the West Gate and Stepcote Hill. Until New Bridge Street was constructed at the foot of Fore Street, this was effectively the only real entrance to Exeter from the west, hence why it pointed to the West Gate. Until West Street was established, Stepcote Hill had been the only way up to the city centre from the west.
Now, this is the bit you may not believe; the ruin of the bridge may look like it has stood preserved on that spot for centuries, but it hasn't, at least not in the sense of being a tourist landmark. It remained a secondary entry point from the west well into the second half of the 20th Century. THE BRIDGE ACTUALLY WAS EDMUND STREET, and it was still tarmacked over and lined with houses and shops as recently as 1963! Cars were still driving up and down it just a couple of years before England won the World Cup. That whole meadow was in fact full of houses and works premises until the by-pass was built in the 1960s, and the Church tower attached to the bridge - St. Edmund's Church - was still fully intact and still running services until just a few weeks before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. The reason it's ruined is not age, but it was destroyed by a fire in 1969, while all the other buildings were removed to make it easier to construct the by-pass. Those stone structures you can see over the side of the bridge include the foundations of the old church and the remains of the cellars of slum houses that were still occupied years after World War II ended. The bridge, which had stood as a crossing for the older, wider River Exe from the 12th to the 17th centuries, had turned into the foundation for Edmund Street, and could still have remained in use as a main road today had different decisions been made. (There was a popular local pub attached to the Bridge called The Teignmouth Inn, but it was mercilessly pulled down in 1960. Most of the families living in the area were moved to new builds in parishes like Wonford and Exwick. The hill of Exwick is covered in houses today, but was almost completely undeveloped until the war.)
Rather than walking up by the noisy Western Way, I recommend finding the steps that lead down to a footpath that runs past Cricklepit Mill - looking uphill, they are at a gap in the fence by the right hand pavement. Once on the footpath, the wall to your left as you walk is a long stretch of the old City Wall, and includes damage caused by cannonballs fired at it in the Civil Wars. The Mill is also worth checking out, and the footpath still leads neatly into the Quay.
TRIVIA FACT: The BBC filmed episodes of 'The Onedin Line' at Exeter Quay in the 1970s.
If you look at the road surface at the foot of South Street, you can see that red-and-yellow-coloured bricks have been used to mark the approximate position and lay-out of the old South Gate. MORE TRIVIA: When the Gate was used as a prison, prisoners had to pay for their food. If they had none, what they would sometimes do is take off a shoe, and hang it on the outside from the bars of their cell windows, and hope passersby would take pity on them and put money in the shoes for them to pay the gaoler for food. It is believed by some that this may be the Exeter-based origin of the expression, "Living on a shoestring budget."
8:50 - the little black door in the Wall leads into the garden of the Bishop's Palace, the luxury mansion of many Bishops of Exeter dating back to Medieval times, and directly next to the Cathedral. The Palace can be accessed, again, by joining a Red Coat Tour, and it includes a lovely excursion through the garden. The Gatehouse of the Palace can be seen on a side street called, fittingly enough, 'Palace Gate' near the foot of South Street.
The extra 'turret' off Southernhay may look like another King John's Tower, but it's a fake; it's a Georgian Folly added around 1912, and no one is completely sure why it was built. It may just have been to 'balance' King John's Tower on the opposite side of the old city.
I lived in Exeter for a year '89/'90. & have only fond memories. The 'Ship Inn', a stone's throw from the cathedral, was a regular watering hole.......for the 'ye ole world' atmosphere you understand. 😁
The quayside, pretty new back then, was a magical place, spending a sunny summer afternoon down there was like being on holiday.
Exeter has no doubt changed a bit since then but it sems to have maintained a lot of it's charm.👍
Funny how many viewers have lived in Exeter at one time or another. It is a great town, and this walled walk was a good way to see so much that I hadn't before. Thanks for watching. All the best!
My old home town,4 Gervais Ave.
Wow,,that brought back memories Trev,,I left Exeter in 93. Hope you and your family are all well, stay safe mate.
Well, glad to have shared that with you all the more then, Andy, Thanks for watching and take care!
Love Exeter, used to be my home town.. So much history.
Yea, it's a beautiful city. Thanks for watching!
@@SummitOrNothing It is a beautiful city, although tragically nowhere near as beautiful as it was before the war. The city was extensively bombed by the Luftwaffe, destroying large stretches of the city centre, especially the High Street, Fore Street, South Street and Sidwell Street, and after the war ended, the City Council used that as a pretext to pull down most of what remained to make room for road-widening. (Only a fraction of the buildings standing in Exeter at the start of the 20th Century were still standing at the start of the 21st.) This is why the High Street has that funny appearance today, with the Lower High Street taking on an old-fashioned, very narrow, lane-like appearance, and the road suddenly doubling in width and taking on a modern architectural style about halfway along its length. That point where the street suddenly widens was simply the point where the fires caused by German incendiary bombs came to a halt. It's also why the buildings on South Street and Sidwell Street all look so samey, characterless and basic. Once the roads had been widened, the council decided to replace the buildings destroyed in the war with anything cheap.
(Please don't believe the urban myth that the evil ol' Germans were to blame for the death of the old city, by the way. The Council demolished far more than the German bombers ever managed to hit.)
It's still a lovely city, and it's still a place I love, but oh, it was once so very much more!
I didn't realise there was so much of it left. Nice tour Trev, thanks.
Yea - you barely take notice of it until you're looking for it either - thanks for watching!
I know Exeter fairly well Trev due to having family nearby but I tend to take the place a bit for granted. Thanks for reminding me what an interesting and striking city it is. I shall look at it with fresh eyes next time. Hope all is good mate. Rich.
Yea, I had walked down the high-street next to this wall so many times, it wasn't until we did a treasure trail with the kids that it bought my attention to it. Thanks for watching!
Interesting a medieval city and defenses in the middle of a modern city... love history!
Cheers Max. Something a little different, but I quite enjoyed putting it together. Thanks for watching.
Great video Trev. I will walk that later in the year. All the best. Josh
Cheers Josh. There's lots more information on the sign boards... As long as they replace all the damaged ones by then. Thanks for watching.
Great walk I will have to do that walk after I have been to Darrmoor. X
Cool, Karl - its a nice little walk! Thanks for watching!
Excellent...I really enjoyed this and if you're up for doing more on a purely ad hoc basis I would be more than happy. Cheers and stay well. Ken
Cool, thank you very much Ken. Really glad that you enjoyed this video. I will definitely look to do more of this in future.
I had no idea Exeter had a wall, really interesting. More please. :-)
Thanks Karen. Glad that you enjoyed this video. I will organise more soon.... Or as soon as I can 😷
It's been 5 years since I stopped working there and moved to Spain. Makes me want to return 😟
That was the last day of sunshine for 6 months - remember that whilst you are in sunny Spain haha. Thanks for watching, and stay safe over there!
Summit Or Nothing 😂 True, but we don't have the moors 😭
Great video Trev very informative, I love this sort of history, very similar to a place called Chester not far from me, uncanny that a lot of the place names are similar. Probably a roman thing.
Keep em coming 😁😁
Cheers Steve - glad that you enjoyed the video - something a bit different, but I quite enjoyed the change to be honest. And yeah, I bet a lot of our cities and towns have very similar histories. Take it easy!
Nice one Trev. Stay safe matey.
Cheers Jim, and you sir!
Aw right up my street this with the history! Didn’t know this was here! Amazing! Been sending my films to my John Lewis google plus site as my colleagues been asking for them as they find them reassuring. Been quite a reaction actually bud. Very moving so just like you do, I’m going to get them out so to speak to the wonderful places we’ve been lucky enough to go. Stay safe Paul
That sounds great, Paul. It's all about encouraging others to get up and out to these fantastic sites. Glad that you enjoyed the video mate. Hope you're keeping well. Cheers.
Was good that Trev 👍
Bet they had more to worry about than Corona virus back then.
Keep em coming mate 😀
Cheers Dean - was a bit different, and a walk I always wanted to do. Yeah, when I was editing this I couldn't help think how at that time we had no idea what was around the corner. Weird, really. Thanks for watching, and take care where you are, bud!
That was cool Trev
Thank you Ray, glad that you enjoyed it! Thanks for watching!
The Romans were great Road Builders.
That they were. Unfortunately for us in Devon they didn't get too far down, most of our roads are sh*t🤣
Thanks.
Top banana Trevor👍🧐 from Exmouth
Chees Mat - thanks for watching!
Surprised he didn’t catch anyone smoking! 😂
Are we sure Trev is not a secret operative for the National Trust?
Does not matter how much they pay you Trev, it's not enough.
Haha... This isn't down to the national trust, this walk is free to take for starters. But you're right, I never get paid enough lol