Cathedral Green
The area around the Cathedral has been at the heart of Exeter ever since Roman times, and although German bombers tried their level best to destroy the core of this historic city during World War II, Cathedral Green managed to retain much of its charm – or at least it did until a devastating fire destroyed the famous Royal Clarence Hotel in October 2016.
Built in 1769, the Royal Clarence, which stands (stood) opposite the cathedral in Cathedral Yard, was reputed to be England’s first hotel and attracted many famous guests over the years from Lord Nelson to Thomas Hardy and Clark Gable. Franz Liszt, the famous Hungarian pianist and composer, gave two recitals here in 1840, an event that was commemorated by a blue plaque erected by the Exeter Civic Society. Between 2000 and 2015 the hotel was co-owned by Andrew Brownsword and the celebrity chef Michael Caines.
The hotel may have attracted a celebrated clientele, but Cathedral Green, thanks to its close proximity to the High Street, has always been popular with shoppers, students, office workers and of course, visitors. Even though the loss of the hotel has had a serious impact on the visual appearance around the Green, there are, fortunately, still a number of other buildings that have been here for centuries and worth closer inspection.
At No.1 Cathedral Close is the 16th century Mol’s Coffee House. There are still original features inside, but the Dutch style gable wasn’t added until 1879. Look out for the coat of Arms of Elizabeth I dating from 1596. According to my favourite Exeter website, Exeter Memories, it was erected by the owner of the building when the ground floor was used as the Custom House. It’s had various uses since, but today it is what it says it is – a coffee house, and thanks to quick thinking by the fire brigade who covered the building in foam, it survived the fire that engulfed the nearby hotel.
If Mol’s Coffee House had gone up in flames, then no doubt so would some of the other premises in Cathedral Close: Numbers 7, 8, and 9a were originally medieval courtyard houses and numbers 10 and 11 were the Archdeacon of Barnstaple’s residence. It’s worth taking a look at its 16th century studded oak door.
If you were wondering who the statue is on the Green, it’s a theologian called Richard Hooker. If he doesn’t mean much to you then you’re in good company because, unless you have an interest in how Anglicanism came about, then you’ll probably just admire the statue instead. It was sculpted by Alfred Drury, who was also responsible for the statue of another Devonian, Sir Joshua Reynolds that stands in front of the Royal Academy.
Cathedral Green isn’t that big and inevitably I have to end with the consequences of the hotel fire which started in the Castle Gallery at No 18, a few doors down from the hotel. The fire spread to the Well House Tavern which I was a frequent visitor of (I was even allowed down into the cellar to see a skeleton that had been down there I don’t know how many years), but as I understand the situation as it is now the site is up for sale and still just a shell with scaffolding, tarpaulin and builders’ containers taking up most of the area.
The Wellhouse belonged to the Royal Clarence, so not only has Exeter lost one of its favourite buildings, I have lost one of my favourite watering holes too. Not only were the buildings gutted, so was I – and still am.
ORIGINAL POST – SEPTEMBER 2017
LATEST UPDATE – SEPTEMBER 2021
Originally posted 2021-09-19 08:47:06.
Oh that is sucha terrilbe shame about that fire. All that history lost.
It is Shey, and the worst of it is, they’ve sold the site to a developer who has a track record of never producing what he promises. I fear it will be left like that for years.
That’s even worse. It is such a nice looking place. But truly councils never care who they sell the land to or stipulate about it. There’s a big carry on going on here re the parking at the local school and the parking is horrendous and like that it is very easy to pitch into the beyond selfish drivers in their swanky big cars flouting every traffic restriction and road rule going. but most of them are coming from this swanky big housing development that was flung up with no thought to the 35 minute walk it takes to get from it to the nearest school. Flung up with no facilites whatsoever. And they bang on about how they want us living within 15 mins of everything.
What is it with developers and councils? Probably too much money going where it shouldn’t be going probably, if you get my drift.
Absolutely. When we lived across the Tay, it was the greatest dream of the MP for Fife –who did lived in Dunfermline, I hasten to add, that there would be houses built all the way from Wormit to Gauldry. So the inhabitatns of said places and Newport where we lived fought him on the biz of infastructure and won. Anyway since then a very small number of houses have been built at the end of Wormit but I gather there were conditions attached. One of them was the addition of portacabin classrooms to the one of the primaries. What they also seem to forget is that most of these new builds are family homes. Anyway there was a braw rammy today at the local school. In addition ot parking wardens being out in force, some guy blocked the little road that leads to a sports club and a small street of houses,,with his bicycle cos it very clearly says that traffic is not allowed on it during school start and finish times and parents whizz up there to park. Your square looks so lovely and has all the hallmakrs of the English town square, it would be awful if something similar isn’t built on that site.
One thing that Cathedral Green has going for it is that it’s on the site of the original Roman Forum and is protected. Every so often the Roman remains get uncovered and then covered over again.
Well that is quite a measure of protection.
It seems there’s quite a bit going on around Cathedral Green, Malc, and a fair bit to interest the visitor besides the obvious draw of the cathedral itself. I love the look of Mol’s Coffee House so I’d have to try that out, and didn’t it do well do dodge the flames of that nearby conflagration? The door to number 11 looks amazing too. As for the Well House Tavern, that does seem to be a terrible loss, so I only hope some bright spark buys the site and restores it to it’s former glory. What a waste it would be otherwise, especially with that great barrel vaulted cellar and it’s bony resident!
I’m not sure Cathedral Green could do with any more “bright sparks” Alli but I’d like to think the Wellhouse and the hotel will rise from the ashes. Thanks for taking a look, and hope you have another good time in Portsmouth 🙂
That certainly does look like a devastating fire.
At least everybody got out safely Don.
That’s the most important thing.
Both the post and the photos are beautiful!
The image after the fire is terrible
Thank you for checking this one out Luisa, and for your smashing comment. It was a crying shame to see the devastation, but I suppose we have to be thankful that it wasn’t even worse.
Absolutely!🙏🌹🙏
Very sad, Malc. Raise a glass of your favorite and toast a great post and well-loved building.
Thank you for checking this out Pat. You’ve probably already noticed that republishing a post doesn’t connect well for my blogs and WordPress Reader.
As I said to you before, I want to update my posts to keep them relevant and although I don’t expect anybody to find them, I’m really grateful that someone like your good self goes to the trouble of doing just that. Thank you so much, and I’m having a glass of red right now, so I’ll raise it to you. Cheers! 🙂