| Description: | Although there has been a guildhall on this site in the High Street since the 12th century, no physical fabric is known to survive from earlier than the late 15th century. The building comprises an Elizabethan forebuilding, or front block, projecting into the street; the late-medieval main hall; and a rear courtyard of late buildings, now given over to police cells (19th century), but serving a variety of functions in the past. This tri-partite plan, filling a typical city-centre tenement plot, seems to have become established at an early date, and certainly before any of the present structures existed in their surviving form. Recent work has given rise to a very full literature on the building, on which this account has been based (Blaylock 1990; Staniforth 1991; Allan 2000).
The guildhall is mentioned in deeds of the 1180s and later as the setting for the transaction of business, numerous documents of this sort mention the ‘gilhall’, sometimes simply the ‘aula’. There is a hint that some new building work took place c.1330, just before the surviving sequence of Receiver’s accounts begins (cf. Jenkins 1806, 62, who was probably cribbing from Hooker; Recognition Event No. 1278), and the later 14th and 15th century accounts provide much information on the topography of the preceding buildings on the site, including a hall, courts, cellars, a solar, a pentice, a prison, and many details of their fixtures and furnishings (Blaylock 1990, 124-6).
The hall seems to have been rebuilt in a major programme of work in the 1460s. John Hooker says of 1466: ‘this year order was taken for new buylding of the Guyldhall which was then very ruynous and yn great decay’. Notwithstanding the extremely high quality of the documentary evidence for work at the guildhall, some doubt still surrounds this episode, as the account for the crucial years (1467-8) is missing. That for 1466-7 shows payments for ordinary maintenance work, but no hint of building work; that for 1468-9 contains payments consistent with the finishing off of and tidying up after a phase of building work. Recent dendrochronological work on the roof timbers has yielded a felling-date range of 1463-1498 for the timber, at least a range which is not inconsistent with the documentary dating (Howard et al. 1999b); and suggests that the masonry of the hall walls and the roof belong to the same building programme. The hall is built of breccia ashlar (in this case probably from Peamore rather than the Heavitree quarries) masonry with perpendicular windows of Beer stone in its side walls (the main window in the gable end of the hall is a replacement of 1772 by Edward Kendall). Although the arrangement of the roof fails to correspond precisely with the bay divisions of the architecture, the dendrochronology leaves little doubt that the two elements were contemporary.
The hall measures 19 x 7.65m internally; it owes its present appearance to a major phase of re-ordering and redecoration carried out to mark Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1887, but the panelling is largely original later 16th century work (payments for panelling are recorded in 1594), now ornamented with the arms of guilds, prominent civic servants and benefactors (Allan 2000, 16-17). A good view of the internal arrangement of the hall in the 1830s is given by an engraving by the Exeter artist John Gendall dated 1839 (Somers-Cocks No. 986; Recognition Event No. 4724). The roof is of seven bays, each approximately 2.5m wide; the principal trusses rest on carved stone corbels (six original, the remainder Victorian replacements). The design of the roof marks it out as a close relative of the roofs at Bowhill, St Thomas dated to c.1500 (outside UAD area, see Blaylock forthcoming), and belonging to the same general style of design and execution to those at the Deanery and the Law Library in the Cathedral Close; the Archdeacon of Exeter’s house in Palace Gate, and at Cadhay House, Ottery St Mary (for a preliminary discussion of this group see Blaylock 1990, 131-4; further discussion, including up to date information on the dating and sequence of the roofs, will appear in idem forthcoming, chapter 8; for illustrations see idem 1990, Figs 3-4 and Allan 2000, 11-13).
Buildings on the street frontage appear to have developed piecemeal; the accounts imply a pentice, or porch, roofed in lead, in the 14th century (Blaylock 1990, 125). In the 1480s, in another concerted building programme, these buildings were replaced with a new front block which incorporated a new chamber (probably a room in which the chamber met) and a chapel, and with a portico on the street (such a feature is shown at the front of the building in Hooker’s map of 1587 (Recognition Event No. 4325). When this building, in turn, was demolished to make way for the Elizabethan front block, much of its dressed and relief-carved Beer-stone masonry was reworked in the plain ashlar masonry of the dado and other parts of the exterior masonry. Repairs in the 1970s and 1980s have led to the rediscovery of some of these carvings, which include figure sculpture of saints and angels, and heraldic decoration, most presumably from the chapel of St George in the Guildhall (Blaylock 1990, 137-9 and Pl. 3); more are known to be still in position, concealed behind the plain masonry of the 1590s. There was a bell from an early date; and a late 15th century bell by the Exeter bellfounder Robert Norton (probably purchased in 1563-4), survives in the building (Blaylock 1990, 125-6), although it has long since ceased to hang in its cote (described by Jenkins as a turret on the balustraded leads: 1806, 318; Recognition Event No. 1329). A structure on the north-east parapet of the front block was provisionally identified as a bellcote when the building was being studied in the mid. 1980s (Blaylock 1990, 158-9 and Pl, 12). At the time this was largely obscured by render; it was deliberately and wantonly demolished by the contractors carrying out the repairs to the building in December 1986, and the fabric was carted away; although reports subsequently leaked out of fragments of an inscription having been observed, no details were ever recoverable of what had been seen.
The rebuilding of the front block from 1592-4 represents another stage in the increasing architectural ornamentation of the city’s ceremonial and administrative centre, but it is noteworthy that amidst the increased pomp and the fashionable decoration, the functional spaces established in earlier front blocks were preserved: a portico beneath which markets were held, ceremony performed, and (occasionally) justice dispensed; a council chamber above on the first floor (now called the Mayor’s parlour), and room for offices and storage above (the chapel had been dissolved in 1547, along with other chantry chapels). This front block was supported on five massive monolithic pillars of granite, brought by road from the quarry at Blackingstone Rock, Bridford (Blaylock 1990, 142-4). Volcanic trap and Permian breccia were used in wall cores and hidden masonry, but the facades were all of fine Beer stone, and were originally coloured, marbled, and decorated in other ways, perhaps including the arms of city benefactors (as with the panelling within; above). The facades were originally complete to second floor level, but the stability of the structure fell into doubt, and the upper stage was taken down in 1718, only a fragment of the ornament survives, tucked into the top of the elevation facing up the High Street (north east side; ibid., 153-5). This, combined with the very fortunate survival of an illustration in the upper right-hand corner of Coles’ map of 1709 (Recognition Event No. 4329), and references to key items in the building accounts of 1592-4, enable the design to be reconstructed with confidence (Blaylock 1990, 155-8 and Fig. 9). The centrepiece was a panel showing the arms of Elizabeth, carved by one Arnold (or ‘Arnoll’) Hamlyn, who also did other pieces of fancy carving for the building: a lion for the foot of the stairs (which does not survive); the capitals of the columns (14 at 6s 8d apiece for the first floor stage; 12 at 4s apiece for the second floor stage; Hamlyn charged £4 for the arms [plus 8d for delivery]). The great oak door was made by a joiner called Nicholas Bagget, at a cost of £4 10s; this survives, inscribed with the date 1593 (cf. Allan 2000, 28-9 for photographs of the door, and parallel Exeter examples of the period). As may be judged from the few examples quoted here the building accounts for the Elizabethan front block are very rich in detail, and chart the progress of the work throughout, including naming the workmen, some of whom went on to have careers in the developing crafts of architectural sculpture and design (Blaylock 1990, 139-41). The total cost of the 1592-4 building work was £791 6s 7d, very nearly a third of the city’s total income in the three years over which work was spread (Staniforth 1991, i-ii).
Later alterations to the front block (in addition to the removal of the second-floor façade already described) included the gradual filling in of the area under the portico, which had originally been open as far back as the main door; frequent work on the pump which supplied water just outside the portico; and frequent maintenance to the exterior elevations (painting and cleaning), and to paving and roofing. Some masonry repairs were carried out in the 1880s, and there were major phases of structural repair to the building in 1900-01 (under the auspices of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings), and in 1970-71 (Blaylock 1990, 170-71). In the hall, a gallery was constructed in 1563-4 at the south end; this was subsequently walled up to form an enclosed room at the south end of the hall, and not re-opened again until 1863 (ibid., 172); the present appearance of the hall is the result of refurbishments made for the Jubilee of 1887 (above).
The rear court of the Guildhall contained the prison, certainly from the 16th century, and possibly earlier; other buildings were also mentioned in the rear court, amongst them the Provost’s Court (a lesser court, which sat separately from the Mayor’s Court). At the end of the 17th century the ‘back grate’, as it was known, was chosen as the site of the cistern as a part of improvements to the water supply which drew water from the Exe at Bonhay, pumping it for storage to (and distribution from) this point (see PM2 Monument No. 11396; Blaylock 1990, 173). The arrangement was seen and described by Celia Fiennes in her well-known account of her visit to Exeter in the 1690s (Morris 1947, 247-8). The cistern remained in this position until the 1830s, after which the present building, incorporating cells below and a committee, record, muniment, or jury room above, was constructed on the Waterbeer Street frontage at the rear of the Guildhall. The upper room was also refurbished in the 1930s, when it received new windows, and was fitted up with 17th century oak panelling brought from Polsloe Priory (Blaylock 1990, 173-4).
Addition: Recording in the 1460s roof of the main hall after the fall of an area of plaster in August 2003 led to some further observations of details of the roof (see EUAD 15254 for a full account). The main observations were to establish the presence of five common rafters per bay (including the central common rafter/intermediate truss assembly). That the ceiling was of post-medieval date (haired lime plaster supported on pine laths fixed to elm battens), although probably no later than the early 19th century, since the lithograph by Gendall/Ashworth dated 1839 shows a ceiled roof. There was no evidence for an earlier ceiling line, implying that the common rafters were originally open to view in the roof (consistent with the evidence of other roofs in this group: Blaylock 2004, 157). Carpenters' assembly marks on the roof timbers and the extent of obvious replaced timber were also noted.
Original monument description by SRB, 18.viii.00, addition by SRB, 31.iii.05
Extant: Yes |
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