Exeter is one of the oldest cities in Britain. It was an inhabited place some two hundred years before the Romans came, and people have lived there without a break for more than two thousand years. The High Street has been in continuous use as a thoroughfare throughout that long period. For centuries Exeter was one of the largest and wealthiest cities in the kingdom and has always been the Mother-City of the South West.
In this book, first published in 1960 and acclaimed as a 'small masterpiece', the author traces the essential historic development and character of a leading provincial centre. He describes its adventure from a small Celtic village to a modern city, with particular reference to its social history, to the lives and surroundings of ordinary people, to the buildings and landscapes of the past. Above all, he is concerned with the recent past and devotes three long chapters to the 19th and 20th centuries. W.G. Hoskins died in 1992. The task of bringing the work up to date and preparing text and illustrations for this new edition of a classic work has been undertaken by Hazel Harvey, a distinguished local historian of Exeter. Much of Exeter has been destroyed, but much of the historic past of this entrancing city still remains.
Hoskins' incomparable text is supported by a new selection of illustrations and maps, with an appendix on the street-names of the city and place-names in the neighbourhood. This book will be as valuable to the visitor as to the citizen of Exeter, for it tells where to look for the memorials of the past and for the history that lies behind them.
Contents:
List of Illustrations
Preface to the First Edition
Introduction to the Revised Edition
1. Beginnings: Caerwysc and Isca
- The Antiquary of Exeter
- The Site of Exeter
- The Coming of the Romans
- Roman Roads and Streets
2. Exeter Under the Saxons
- The Dark Centuries
- The Saxon City and its Setting
- The Earliest Churches
- The Danes
3. The Normans and After
- The Siege of Exeter 1068
- Cathedral and Parish Churches
- The Growth of Exe Island
- Exeter Castle
- The Building of Exe Bridge
4. Exeter in the Middle Ages
- The Earliest Mayors
- Beginnings of a University
- Parish Boundaries
- The Underground Passages
- Some Medieval People
- The Labourer and his Wages
- Some Medieval Buildings
- Medieval Sanitation
- The Magdalen Hospital
- The Courtenays and the River
5. Exeter People in the Sixteenth Century
- Wealth and Poverty
- Some Exeter Mayors
- The Reformation
- Some Old By-Laws
- The First Tennis Courts
- Exeter in 1587
6. Civil War and Commonwealth
- The Line-up in Devon
- The Siege of 1643
- The Siege of 1645-46
- Printing in Exeter
7. A Georgian City
- Two Visitors to Exeter
- Exeter Merchant Families
- Church and Chapel
- A Changing City
8. The Early Nineteenth Century
- Smells and Culture
- A New Kind of City
- The Working Class
- The Cholera Epidemic
9. Victorian Exeter
- Mostly About Money
- Exeter Politics
- The Coming of the Railway
- A Victorian Failure
- A Victorian Success Story
- Wages and Prices
- Victorian Fortunes
- Entertainment in Former Days
- The Coming of the Motor Car
10. Exeter Since 1914
- High Street in 1919
- Between the Wars
- The Burning of the City
- The Silent Revolution
- Exeter in 1960
11. Exeter Since 1960
Exeter Street Names and Place Names
Suggestions for Further Reading
Index
Review:a simple, accessible prose... with scholarly diligence... Today's updated edition, complete with lavish new illustrations, is published by Phillimore, which over the years has produced a wealth of well-researched and readable books... -- The Guardian
Many local people will welcome Hazel Harvey's new edition of Hoskins' important work... enabling his original brilliance to filter into some city households for the first time. -- Exeter Flying Post
