Exeter Photo Walk 6 The Cathedral

This was the walk that never seems to end as I started this project in June 2023, but I am now on the final stretch, and have reached the cathedral. I took so many photos in the cathedral that I am making three separate posts which are roughly divided into the building structure in this post, the second, which will feature a lot of the objects and tombs inside, and the third, which will cover the largest work of art in Exeter, which is also to be found inside, and which runs the full length of the nave.

I hope Amanda is going to find this one "super interesting" too. The story starts with the Romans, then moves on to the Saxons and ultimately the Normans who piled these stones up as we see them today. The key men in the story of the building we see today were in this particular order, Saint Boniface, Edwulf, Leofric, William Warelwast, Walter Bronescombe, George Gilbert Scott, and finally Adolf Hitler.

The earliest evidence here is Roman. During recent excavations outside the main cathedral walls where a cloister once stood, a Roman street and timber buildings dating from AD 50-75 were discovered. These formed part of a legionary fortress which underlies the city. The city was once a Roman stronghold and much of the original Roman defensive wall still remains scattered around the modern city. These walls remained up until medieval times, and the last city gate was only demolished as recently as 1819. In 1971 the remains of a Roman bathhouse were discovered under the cathedral itself.

The Roman city walls were a deciding factor in the building of the cathedral right here.

Things started in nearby Crediton, the claimed birthplace of Saint Boniface in 672, where in 909 a Bishop's see was founded with its first bishop being Edwulf. There were a further nine bishops there until 1050 when Bishop Leofric asked for Papal permission to move the see to Exeter. By this time Crediton had become vulnerable to foreign seaborne raids and it made sense to move operations to the larger, walled and better defended position in Exeter.

Boniface was a leading figure in the Anglo-Saxon mission to what we call Germany today. He became the Bishop of Mainz and was martyred in 754. Today he is the patron Saint of Germany.

Edwulf or Eadwulf was elected to the see at Crediton in 909 and built a cathedral there which predates the one in Exeter. It later became the collegiate church of Crediton. He is buried in Crediton church. My post on Crediton church is here.

Leofric was Bishop of Cornwall, then Bishop of Crediton and then Bishop of Exeter after moving operations to the new site in 1050. There was by then an Anglo-Saxon minster already in the town. Leofric did not know the building we see today as it was constructed after his death.

Enter stage left the wonderfully named William Warelwast who became bishop of the see in 1107. Any history buff reading this will have spotted this key period in English history. Leofric was bishop under Saxon rule while Warelwast was a Norman, installed after the invasion of 1066. Building started in 1112 and Warelwast consecrated the new cathedral building in 1133 with the nave and west front completed in 1160. The chapter house and original cloisters were added between 1180 and 1244. Buildings of this scale tended to be built in stages and were also altered and improved along the way. Original sections were then replaced between 1270 and 1290. By 1328 the church was considered to be complete. From 1377 to 1414 the east, south and west cloister walks were finished.

In truth, with new cloisters planned, it could be said to be still under construction.

The West Front of Exeter Cathedral is one of medieval England's great architectural features, primarily notable for its colossal image screen with three rows of statues of kings, prophets, and other figures. Built around 1340 by master mason Thomas of Witney, it completed the Gothic rebuild of the cathedral and features intricate carvings. The West Front is known for its dynamic statues with magnificent draperies, a style that was an integral part of the medieval design.

Because the cathedral tower is not in the centre of the building, Exeter Cathedral has the longest uninterrupted medieval vaulted ceiling in the world, at about 96 m (315 ft).

It was Walter Bronescombe who oversaw much of the redesign and rebuilds mentioned.

Following the appointment of Walter Bronescombe as bishop in 1258, the building was already recognised as outmoded, and it was rebuilt in the Decorated Gothic style, following the example of Salisbury. However, much of the Norman building was kept, including the two massive square towers and part of the walls.

Exeter cathedral escaped much of the damage wrought during the dissolution of the monasteries between 1536 and 1541 due to the fact that it was not a monastic institution. There are, however, tell-tale examples of iconoclasm in the building. We'll see carvings and sculpture in a later post, where heads or faces are damaged.

There are over 400 ceiling bosses, one of which depicts the murder of Thomas Becket. The bosses can be seen at the peak of the vaulted ceiling, joining the ribs together. In Gothic architecture, such roof bosses (or ceiling bosses) are often intricately carved with foliage, heraldic devices or other decorations. Many feature animals, birds, or human figures or faces, sometimes realistic, but often Grotesque.

In 1764 attention turned to the great west window of the nave. William Peckitt of York, the leading glass-painter of his day, was commissioned to provide the glazing. This was one of the most ambitious and costly projects of its day in Britain; it was completed in 1767. It portrayed standing apostles and saints, with the coats of arms of cathedral dignitaries and the Devon families who sponsored the work. Rammtimetrail.

That window was controversially replaced in 1904 by a window that was then lost when German bombing damaged most of the glass in the cathedral during the Second World War. The window we see today is a post war replacement. Some of the Peckitt window survives in the cloisters.

In 1665 local organ builder John Loosemore created what has become one of the most distinctive and striking organ cases ever built. In over three hundred years the organ has been expanded and updated to meet the ever changing musical demands of a living Cathedral, from the expansion and raising of Loosemore’s case and the moving of the impressive 32’ pipes to the South Transept, to the creation of an entirely new section of the organ in the Minstrels’ Gallery.

Containing over 4000 pipes, the organ is played from a console of four manuals and pedals which is situated on the central ‘pulpitum’ screen. Exeter-cathedral

The pulpitum is a common feature in medieval cathedral and monastic church architecture in Europe. It is a massive screen that divides the choir (the area containing the choir stalls and high altar in a cathedral, collegiate or monastic church) from the nave and ambulatory (the parts of the church to which lay worshippers may have access). It is usually constructed of stone, but there are also wooden examples.

The Exeter pulpitum originally contained sculpture, or bas reliefs, recorded in 1324, but what we see today are 17th century paintings. Surrounding those paintings much original carved foliage still survives and restoration has revealed that this was once brightly coloured and gilded.

In the area behind the High Altar lies a group of side chapels and chantries and various highly decorated tombs and monuments. We'll see more details in the next post. These ornate details here are from Sir John Speke's chapel.

The main chapel is the Lady Chapel, possibly formed from the choir of Leofric's original building, and two chapels one on either side. These are St. Mary Magdalene's Chapel and St. Gabriel's Chapel. Arches and tombs link all three spaces.

Bishop Oldham’s burial chapel at the south end of the retroquire was built at the same time as the chapel for Sir John Speke at the north end. Although the details of these two chapels are different, they form a corresponding pair, maintaining the building’s north-south symmetry. Bishop Oldham died on 25 June 1519, six months after he wrote his will in which he left £80 for the vicars choral of the cathedral to celebrate a daily Mass for his soul at his tomb.

Inside, there is a profusion of owls – around the walls, on the ceiling (seen here, right and left in rows) and in the bishop’s coats of arms. The owl is a rebus of his name as ‘Owl-dom’. Statues and other figures have been damaged, whilst the owls remain intact.

The Lady Chapel also houses significant European continental stained glass panels dating from the late 15th and early 16th centuries.

Nine magnificent 16th century Flemish and French panels depicting scenes from the Old and New Testament. The windows, which were placed in their current position in 1955, were originally part of the collection made in the early nineteenth century by Sir William Jerningham (1736-1809) and his son, Sir George Jerningham (1771-1851) of Costessey Hall, Norfolk. The collection of 79 windows was sold after World War One, when the decision was made to demolish the hall. Visitstainedglass

The glass complements the chapel's overall Decorated style of architecture, which is known for its intricate stonework and vaulting.

The Lady Chapel was built at the end of the 13th century. During the Reformation in the 16th century, all chapels in the cathedral ceased to be used for worship and were repurposed as vestries or simply abandoned. The Lady Chapel had been unused for about a century when the Civil War brought the abolition of bishops in 1646 and of deans and chapters in 1649. Cathedrals ceased to function. In Exeter, the extreme Puritan city chamber was in charge of the cathedral building which became a venue for non-conformist worship.

During the 19th century the windows were filled with stained glass which was shattered when bombs fell nearby on 25 April 1942. The present East window, designed by Marion D Grant, was installed in 1953.

Exeter Cathedral is undertaking a major 2020s development to conserve and improve its historic fabric, including a significant restoration of the Quire (choir). The project includes conserving the 13th-century misericords and Bishop's throne, and installing underfloor heating.

George Gilbert Scott carried out the major restoration of 1870 to 1877 including choir stalls to match the earlier bishops throne canopy and organ case.

The bishops throne canopy can just be seen here. So tall that it emerges from the tent like structure of the restoration dust sheets.

Work on the bishop's throne canopy began in 1313. Bishop Stapledon contributed immensely to the creation of Exeter Cathedral as we see it today and continued the rebuilding program which had started c.1275 under his predecessors.

His most lasting legacy however is probably the group of spectacular fittings he commissioned for the choir. These consisted of a bishop's throne, a sedilia, a reredos behind the high altar and the pulpitum (the screen dividing the choir from the nave upon which the organ now stands). According to Jon Cannon, "few groups of structures anywhere show a more brilliantly unreined creativity". The throne canopy, sedilia and pulpitum commissioned by Stapledon remain in the cathedral today, "a group which cannot be parallelled in any other English cathedral" (Pevsner & Cherry). Demolitionexterblogspot.

The work featuring in these pictures of June 2023 is now complete.

Quire Discoveries (2023)

Original Norman High Altar Foundations: A significant find confirming the site of the original Norman high altar from the early 12th century.

Possible Crypt: A sunken area was revealed, believed to be part of a crypt that was filled in around 1300 AD, changing previous understandings of the Norman building's construction.

Bishop's Tombs: Two empty tombs were uncovered, thought to be the final resting place for bishops Robert Warelwast and William Brewer, who were moved to these tombs in 1320 from their original locations in the Norman Quire.

Exeter Cathedral has a small, cat-sized hole in a 14th-century door in the south transept, which is thought to be the world's oldest cat flap. Although the records are inconsistent, one theory suggests the hole was cut during Bishop Cotton's tenure in the 16th century so his cats could hunt mice attracted to the astronomical clock's fat-based lubrication. One document records a payment of 8 pence to a carpenter to cut the hole in the door in 1598. Cathedral accounts from 1305 to 1467 also show payments to cats for pest control.

To follow my whole walk start with

Exeter Photo Walk 1

To see more on the interior of the cathedral

Exeter Photo Walk 7 The Cathedral Treasures