| Description: | The stone bridge across the River Exe was built c.1200 over a wide section of river which probably also, from time to time, had functioned as a ford; there may also have been earlier timber bridge(s) over the river in the Roman period (ref.). Eight and a half arches, mainly circular but including two pointed arches, survive of an original structure of 17 arches, stretching 81m from the eastern abutment; the original length is estimated as c.180m; the total length including the raised causeways of the approaches was c.240m (787 feet); the average width of the bridge is c.5m, with a carriageway c.4.2m wide; in height the bridge rose from c.3m above the river bed at the Exeter end to above 6m at the centre (over the ninth arch); the carriageway was paved with flags, one area of possible medieval paving survives above the seventh arch; one waterspout survives on the west side of the fifth arch (Brown 1991, 4). Construction appears to have advanced from east to west; a number of minor breaks in build and discontinuities in coursing of masonry were recorded, all of which are consistent with such a building sequence (ibid., 4-5). The masonry facework was constructed of volcanic trap blocks, with some Triassic sandstone and Caen limestone blocks added for decorative effect; the first two named stones are the standard building materials of Exeter through most of period MD2 and MD3; the differential stone types are often used to decorative effect in the arches where there is a tendency for voussoirs to employ alternate blocks of purple and white stone. A chamfered plinth runs around much of the base of the fabric, through the arches and extending around some of the cutwaters. The arches were constructed on ribs of ashlar blocks which, in addition to providing strengthening and ornamental aspects to the arches, served to support centring (or planked supports) for the infilling of the arches. The round (strictly segmental) arches had four or five ribs; the pointed arches three apiece (ibid., 4-5). The cores are of mortared rubble. The bridge piers were constructed on rubble and gravel foundations retained by oak stakes driven into the river bed; more substantial foundations were required as the bridge advanced into deeper water: rows or grids of oak piles, deeper rubble foundations and revetments of woven wattle on oak stakes around the limits of the foundations (ibid., 6).
Work was in progress on the bridge by 1196, when a ‘chaplain of Exe Bridge’ appears as a witness to a charter (Brown 1991, 1); construction was complete by c.1214 when the chapels of St Edmund and St Thomas appear in Peter de Palerna’s list of Exeter churches (ibid.; Rose-Troup 1923, vi). The building of the bridge was driven by two prominent citizens, doubtless on behalf of the city: Nicholas Gervase and Walter his son, Nicholas took charge of building operations, whilst Walter raised money and endowed a trust for the maintenance of the finished bridge; the responsibility for its upkeep passed to the city on completion (ibid.). Wardens of the bridge were appointed annually at the Mayor’s Court; a long sequence of annual accounts survives almost unbroken between 1343 and 1711.
The main buildings on the bridge were the chapels of St Edmund (Monument No. 11024) and St Thomas (Monument No. 11052) at the east and west ends of the bridge respectively. Opposite St Edmund’s was a chantry chapel of the mid 13th century, of which fragments only were recorded (Brown 1991, Fig. 35; Henderson 1981, 122). Houses encroached on the bridge in the 14th century (ibid.).
The bridge required constant maintenance, as is shown by the wardens’ accounts; especially prone to damage were the foundations, which were easily exposed to the river, and could be washed away. Repairs often employed the addition of brushwood bundles and poles, to form additional defence against the buffeting of the river (Brown 1991, 6 and 22). More serious damage to the fabric was also a constant hazard, especially by winter flooding; this was often concentrated on the western arches where the river was deepest, and current strongest (ibid., 1-2). Losses of one or more arches are recorded in 1286 (Jenkins 1806, 50); 1351; and possibly 1384 (Jenkins 1806, 69; repaired in 1386-7: Brown 1991, 2). Probably as a result of these progressive depredations and consequent holding repairs, part of the bridge had become ruinous and unsafe by the 15th century, and attempts were made to raise the money for a more thorough rebuilding (Jenkins 1806, 76). Another well known and well-documented collapse occurred in 1539; on this occasion stone from the demolition of the church of St Nicholas’ Priory, then in progress, was used for the rebuilding (along with repairs to the city walls), leading to the fulfilment of a prophecy that ‘the river of Exe should run under St Nicholas church’ according to Hooker (Allan 1999, 15). It is often suggested that this event was the cause of the 8th century cross shaft being built into the bridge (and the basis for its eventual restoration to the priory in 1910: cf. Recognition Event No. 1221; Monument No. 11011).
The principal illustrative sources for the appearance and architectural detail of the bridge are the Chamber Map Book of 1758 (Recognition Event No. 4332); this is supplemented by an engraved plan based on the Chamber Map Book by Lt-Col. W.Harding, which includes careful elevations of those parts of the bridge still visible at the time (Harding 1849, Pl. 31). Above all are the careful and comprehensive archaeological record drawings made by Stewart Brown in the 1970s, which give a very full record of the fabric of the bridge (Brown 1991, passim). There are numerous engravings and drawings of the bridge, which attracted artists in search of the picturesque; among the better and more reliable (if only because of their contemporaneity) are those by Rocque (1744: Recognition Event No. 4331); Schellink (Recognition Event No. 4421; [illustrated by Hoskins 1960, Pl. 3]); and Jenkins (1806, opp. p. 217; Recognition Event No. 3045). Many of the pictorial sources show the buildings on the bridge which, in addition to the chapels described separately, encroached along the bridge in the later medieval and post-medieval periods: e.g. two by George Townsend (Recognition Event No’s 3036, 3042); another by M.Rowe (Recognition Event No. 3040), etc., although many of these are relatively late in date, they contribute to the picture established by the general views of the bridge described above. |
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