Exeter Cathedral: An Anglican Cathedral of Norman and Decorated Gothic Architecture
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- English, Norman
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page22 sections
History
Exeter Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter, is an Anglican cathedral in the United Kingdom whose history as the seat of the Bishop of Exeter dates to 1050. Its present fabric combines Norman and Decorated Gothic architecture, reflecting successive medieval building campaigns and later alterations. The cathedral remains the principal church of the Diocese of Exeter in the Province of Canterbury.
Roman and Anglo-Saxon predecessors
The site had been occupied during the Roman period. A legionary fortress was built there between AD 50 and 75, and the remains of a Roman bathhouse were discovered in 1971. These discoveries revealed that the cathedral precinct formed part of an earlier city and helped clarify the history of the western end of the site.
In 1050, fear of attacks arriving by sea led to the transfer of the episcopal seat of Devon and Cornwall from Crediton to Exeter. Bishop Leofric used an existing Anglo-Saxon minster dedicated to Saint Mary and Saint Peter as his seat. Services were often held outdoors near the present cathedral site, however, before the later building provided a permanent setting for worship. Leofric also began the cathedral library with a donation of 66 volumes.
The Norman cathedral
William Warelwast became bishop in 1107 and initiated the construction of a new Norman cathedral. Norman architecture was the Romanesque style developed in territories ruled by the Normans. The building campaign probably began at the eastern end in 1112. Its official foundation and consecration are dated to 1133, by which time the choir, transept, and first two bays of the nave were probably complete. Construction continued, and the nave and west front had probably been finished by about 1160.
Much of this Norman structure survived later rebuilding. The two massive square transept towers and parts of the walls remain among the clearest evidence of the first cathedral. A cloister and chapter house were added between 1180 and 1244, extending the cathedral complex beyond the main church.
Medieval rebuilding
When Walter Bronescombe became bishop in 1258, the Norman cathedral was considered outdated. A progressive rebuilding campaign replaced much of it in the Decorated Gothic style, a later English Gothic phase known for elaborate window tracery and increasingly complex ornament. The work followed the example of Salisbury Cathedral while retaining the Norman transept towers and other parts of the earlier building.
The rebuilding began at the eastern end in the 1270s, starting with the eastern chapels. The retrochoir, presbytery, and choir were constructed during the 1290s. The original two-storey elevation of the choir was later changed to three storeys, probably after Master Roger arrived in 1297. By 1328, the church had reached the first two nave bays, where a change in vault design can still be seen.
Thomas of Witney designed the choir furnishings from 1316 and served as master mason until 1342. The nave, west front, and north cloister walk were probably completed during approximately 1328 to 1342. The west front occupies the position of the Norman predecessor, while the nave bays narrow toward the west to meet an existing feature. William Joy probably designed the image screen across the facade and the chantry chapel of Bishop Grandisson within the west front. A chantry chapel was established for prayers or masses for the dead, often for a particular benefactor or cleric.
Robert Lesyngham probably designed the Great East Window between 1390 and 1392 and completed parts of the cloisters. The cathedral was substantially complete by about 1400, although the chapter house and chantry chapels were added or completed later. The east cloister walk was begun between 1318 and 1325, while the east, south, and west walks were completed between 1377 and 1414. The long building history, extending from the early twelfth century into the fifteenth century and beyond, produced the combination of Norman and Decorated Gothic forms visible today.
Reformation, war, and restoration
Exeter Cathedral suffered during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the sixteenth-century suppression of England’s monastic houses under Henry VIII. Its losses were less severe than those of a monastic cathedral. The cathedral library continued to develop, although some of its buildings were confiscated in 1657 during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, the republican government led by Cromwell after the execution of Charles I. Some books were lost, but Robert Vivyan saved most of the collection by moving it to Saint John’s Hospital and paying for the conversion of the Lady Chapel into a library. The books were later returned there.
The cathedral also witnessed changing religious and political circumstances in the seventeenth century. Henrietta Anne, the sister of Charles II, was baptised there in 1644. In 1650, an Independent church met in the cathedral, and its minister caused controversy by excommunicating Susanna Parr. After the restoration of Charles II, John Loosemore built a new organ for the cathedral. The cloisters were destroyed during the English Civil War.
During the Victorian period, George Gilbert Scott undertook refurbishment. The cathedral choir also had an important musical connection with the composer Matthew Locke, who was trained there under Edward Gibbons, the brother of the composer Orlando Gibbons. Locke’s name is carved on the stone organ screen.
Wartime damage and continuing use
On 4 May 1942, during the German air offensive against Exeter, a large high-explosive bomb struck the chapel of Saint James and destroyed it completely. The muniment room above the chapel, three bays of the aisle, and two flying buttresses were also destroyed. The medieval wooden screen opposite the chapel was shattered and was later reconstructed and restored.
Before the raid, ancient glass, including glass from the Great East Window, had been removed for protection, together with the misericords, the bishop’s throne, the Exeter Book, charters associated with Æthelstan and Edward the Confessor, and other library documents. Walter Bronescombe’s effigy was protected with sandbags. Clearance and repairs after the bombing exposed remains of earlier structures at the western end, including parts of the Roman city and the original Norman cathedral.
Exeter Cathedral remains an active Anglican place of worship. In 2023, its chapter signed an agreement permitting shared use of the Lady Chapel by the cathedral and Mint Methodist Exeter.
Remains
Layout and medieval fabric
The cathedral is built entirely from local stone, including Purbeck Marble, and measures approximately 383 feet, or 117 metres, in overall length. Its Norman and Decorated Gothic components form a single elongated church with transepts, cloisters, chapels, and later additions. The building has no central tower, allowing its medieval stone vault to continue uninterrupted for approximately 96 metres, or 315 feet.
The surviving Norman fabric is especially clear in the massive square transept towers and sections of the walls. The later eastern rebuilding replaced the earlier end of the church, while the choir, presbytery, retrochoir, nave, and west front belong largely to the medieval Gothic campaigns. The bays are irregular in size but are organized overall according to a division into ninths. Three-dimensional scanning has identified changes in the curvature of the vault ribs and alterations to the facade, including the adoption of a three-storey elevation with a triforium, a gallery or arcaded passage above the main nave arcade.
Vaults and choir furnishings
Stone vault and carved bosses
The interior is covered by continuous tierceron vaulting, a ribbed vault whose subsidiary ribs branch toward the central or intermediate points of each bay. More than 400 bosses join the ribs at the apex of the vaults. One of these carved bosses depicts the murder of Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury who was killed in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 and later venerated as a martyr.
Bishop’s throne and choir stalls
The bishop’s throne in the choir rises approximately 18 metres, or 59 feet, high. It was made from Devon oak between 1312 and 1316 and serves as the ceremonial seat of the bishop, whose presence gives the cathedral its institutional character as the bishop’s church. The nearby choir stalls were made by George Gilbert Scott in the 1870s.
Great East Window and medieval screen
The Great East Window retains substantial fourteenth-century stained glass and forms one of the principal surviving medieval features of the eastern end. At the western end, the medieval wooden screen opposite the former chapel of Saint James was reconstructed and restored after the 1942 bombing.
Carved wood and musical imagery
Misericords
The cathedral has 50 misericords, projecting ledges beneath folding choir seats that allowed clergy to rest while appearing to stand. They form the earliest complete set in the United Kingdom and were carved in two periods, approximately 1220 to 1230 and 1250 to 1260. Their imagery includes the earliest known wooden representation of an elephant in the United Kingdom, and the misericords have carved supporters.
Minstrels’ gallery
The minstrels’ gallery in the nave dates from about 1360 and is described as unique among English cathedrals. Its front carries 12 painted and sculpted angels holding medieval musical instruments. The instruments have been identified as a gittern, bagpipe, shawm, fiddle, harp, Jew’s harp, trumpet, organ, citole, recorder, tambourine, and cymbals, although two identifications remain uncertain.
Clock and bells
Astronomical clock
The astronomical clock belongs to a group of West English astronomical clocks made between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. Its principal 24-hour dial dates from about 1484 and uses two sets of Roman numerals from I to XII. A fleur-de-lis indicates the time and the position of the Sun, while a rotating sphere, half silvered and half black, shows the phase of the Moon. A terrestrial globe occupies the centre, and an upper dial added in the 1760s displays the minutes.
The clock bears the Latin motto Pereunt et Imputantur, associated with the passage of time and its use. Its original mechanism was removed in 1885, restored by the astronomer John James Hall in 1910, and placed on display beneath the clock. A small bell strikes the quarters and a larger bell strikes the hours. A circular opening cut into the lower part of the clock-mechanism door in the seventeenth century allowed cats to enter and catch rats attracted by the animal grease used to lubricate the mechanism.
North and south tower bells
The north tower contains Peter, a 3,684-kilogram bell cast by Thomas Purdue in 1676. It has a diameter of 188 centimetres and a tone of A at 445 Hz. The bell hangs in a late-fifteenth-century oak frame, is currently stationary, and is struck only by the clock mechanism. Two smaller bells strike the quarters.
The south tower contains a 12-bell ring mounted on an iron frame dating from 1902. Its tenor weighs 3,684 kilograms and sounds B-flat at 460 Hz. The ring also has additional G and A-flat bells.
Library, memorials, and organ
Library and manuscripts
The cathedral library preserves the Exeter Book, a tenth-century collection of Anglo-Saxon poetry and the only surviving volume from Bishop Leofric’s original 66-book donation still at Exeter. It contains the only surviving text of the poem Widsith. The collection also includes a richly illustrated psalter probably made for Saint Helen’s Church in Worcester in the early thirteenth century. Its oldest printed item is a single leaf of Cicero’s De officiis, produced by Fust and Schoeffer at Mainz in 1465 or 1466.
The library grew to more than 530 titles by 1506, about 5,000 volumes by 1752, and approximately 6,000 books by 1761. It moved from the Lady Chapel to the chapter house in 1820. After later expansion, John Loughborough Pearson designed a separate library on the site of the cloisters, while much of the collection subsequently moved to the Bishop’s Palace. The collection also received medical books from Exeter Medical Library, founded in 1814, and 1,300 volumes borrowed from the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital in 1965. In 1566, an Anglo-Saxon New Testament from Leofric’s collection was given to Archbishop Matthew Parker, and 81 manuscripts were given to Thomas Bodley for the Bodleian Library in 1602.
Burials and memorials
The cathedral contains burials and memorials associated with the Courtenay family, including Peter I of Courtenay and Hugh Courtenay, tenth Earl of Devon. The tombs of numerous bishops of Exeter are also present, among them Edmund Stafford, a medieval bishop who served as royal chancellor.
Organ
The cathedral organ was repeatedly rebuilt. Parliamentary forces damaged an earlier instrument between 1645 and 1660, destroying approximately 200 to 300 pipes. John Loosemore built its successor in 1665, and later work was undertaken by Abraham Jordan, Henry Speechly, Henry Willis, and Harrison & Harrison. Major modernization of the existing organ began in 2013.
The present organ has 72 stops distributed across four 58-key manuals, named Choir, Great, Swell, and Solo, together with a 30-key pedal division. It includes a 16-foot Bourdon and the lowest octave of the 32-foot Contra Violone, whose largest pipes are installed in the south transept. Its Army Trumpet stop is one of only three such stops in the country and is located in the Minstrels’ gallery division.
