A walk along the walls, part 8

 

In the last issue, I included the sentence: ‘If another writer took you by the hand, for a walk around our neighbourhood, they might point out other “things”.’  I took that advice and on New Year’s Day, when I walked this route, I looked out for any wild plants that were in flower in the edge of the roads and pavements, spared from weedkiller.  There were six species flowering; a month later, there were two or three more, but far more greenery as plants put out their leaves. So my other “things” were wildflowers.

This walk starts in Magdalen Road, and we wander down towards the city, turning into Fairpark Road.  The lower part of Magdalen Road is lined on the right with the wall of the almshouses, very attractive stonework.  On the left, the scene is mixed, as houses have been built at different times.  Because the walls here are north-facing and are exposed to the weather and spray from the road, the stone supports lichens, mosses and other plants. 

Once in Fairpark Road, the walls are neat and do not show many signs of change.  Then wander down the steep passageway on the right. The buildings on the right occupy the site of the St Mary Magdalene Hospital, a hospital for lepers built in the 12^th century.  And that ancient building is why Magdalen Road and Magdalen Street got their names, though the final “e” in the hospital name got lost over the years.  The wall on the right of the passage is somewhat plain; on the left, there is a field wall from the 19^th century, using the ubiquitous sandstone.  Below that are walls that date from the building of Temple Road at the foot of the slope.  Once again, the walls support a variety of plant life.  The north wall of Bull Meadow is part of the support of the viaduct across the valley, and is faced with mixed stone.  The viaduct opened soon after Queen Victoria’s accession; the people of Exeter were complaining about the difficulty of crossing the valley, and it is likely that the residents of new houses in St Leonard’s were among the voices calling for change. 

Close to the city, the walls of the two old cemeteries are a confusion of brick and stone, with additions to old field walls topped with brick.  The site of the leper hospital was an orchard until the early 20^th century, and the story of how the area became a public park is one of squabbles between local people and the City Council.  It is detailed online as a page of Exeter Memories.

Walking away from the viaduct takes you to the boundaries of the houses in several streets, the back of the former school (now a place of worship) and the back of the Bull Meadow Clinic, an interesting example of 1920’s architecture when it was built as an “Infant Welfare Centre”.  There is a gap which leads into Lansdowne Terrace, whose ten houses date from the mid-19^th century.  As you walk along, there is one set of railings which escaped being salvaged in the Second World War.  Since the terraced houses below Lansdowne Terrace are much later, we can only imagine the semi-rural view that the first residents enjoyed.

This brings you to Holloway Street; now you can walk back to your start through the terraced streets, or retrace your walk through the park.  But before you do, look at the junction with Roberts Road.  Anything odd?  There is a line of paving across the road, a relic of a much older road surface.

 

A walk along the walls (part 7)

 

First, a correction to the last issue.  I wrote that Delabole slate would have come from Dartmoor.  Try as you might, you won’t find much slate on the moor.  Some slate is found near Lydford, but that is not a very big source.  Delabole slate comes from Cornwall!  So moving it to Exeter in the first half of the 19^th century meant shipping it from Port Gaverne on the north Cornish coast after it had been hauled the six miles from the quarry. (There is a short history of the mine online.)  Now, while I am in a repentant mood, I have repeatedly written of “Heavitree” stone or breccia; to be accurate, I should mention that around the city, most of the sandstone blocks came from Heavitree/Wonford, while others from quarries in Whipton and Exminster.  Apologies to those localities.

 I hope that you haven’t been too busy over Christmas and the New Year to enjoy seeing “things” around St Leonard’s.  These articles have concentrated on the walls along our local roads, with occasional references to other “things” that you might notice.  If another writer took you by the hand, for a walk around our neighbourhood, they might point out other “things”.  Now there’s a challenge to future contributors!

For this excursion, start by the pedestrian crossing in the village.  Apart from the short block of shops opposite the Mount Radford, all the shops are on one side of the road.  Apparently, there was a covenant on the land that prohibited any commercial buildings apart from a dairy (which became that short block of shops).  Besides being a divider between shops and houses, the road marks the boundary between the church parishes of St Matthew and St Leonard.  It is generally agreed that this was a Roman road originally.  Now, walk towards Denmark Road. 

The front garden walls on the left side of the road are varied with brick and stone; the two pairs of white fluted gateposts are interesting.  They feature as a listed building, (yes, a Building!) noted for their Doric style, found in the Parthenon in Athens and on several historic buildings around Britain … but not many in Exeter.  Further down there is another wall with railings replacing those lost to World War 2 metal collections.

Turn into Denmark Road and the walls of the almshouses on the left are mainly Heavitree stone, but with an interesting tapered top.  There is a short stretch of Heavitree stone behind the gardens of the almshouses.  On the right, the façade is of glazed brick with the detail picked out in plain brickwork; generally, the components are reversed, glazed bricks for detail.  The semi-detached houses beyond share a simple stone wall, with a decorated brick gatepost.  However, opposite, a gatepost topped with a stone pyramid marks the end of a Heavitree stone wall between the properties.  It’s a legacy of the time in the 19^th century when this area was orchards and nurseries bounded by field walls.  Presumably, long ago, the builder or owner decided that the roadside deserved an ornate feature, partially concealing the wall. 

Most of the block of land on the right beyond Spicer Road is the grounds of the Maynard School; the exception is the corner plot, the vicarage for St Matthew’s church.  As you walk along Denmark Road, there is a change in the brickwork of the wall, which shows the extent of the vicarage garden.  Walk a little further, and it changes again. Why?  When the school was established, there was an orchard between the school grounds and the vicarage.  The central brickwork marks the extent of this smallholding or nursery.  (As the entrance to the nursery was from Denmark Road, and there is no sign of it in the wall, I assume that all the brickwork dates from after the sale of the grounds to the school.  Does anyone know?)

Opposite, the grounds of Crossley House were left undeveloped after its neighbours were built, which accounts for the irregular boundary on the right-hand side.  The corner plot was also a nursery and was developed after the other buildings in Denmark Road.  The house took the name “Athelstan House” from a legend that the land was fortified by King Athelstan (king 925-940AD) who was (probably) a benefactor of the people of Exeter.  At the crossroads, the Livery Dole Martyrs’ Memorial was erected in 1909 in memory of the protestant martyrs, Thomas Benet and Agnes Prest.  If you have never stopped to look at the plaques around the base, they reveal an aspect of the history of this spot.

The area bounded by Barnfield Road and Denmark Road ahead of you was one of the nurseries belonging to the Sclater family, who owned a great deal of land around the city in the 19^th century.  They had glasshouses in the area between Barnfield Hill and Heavitree Road.

Finally, walk towards Western Way; the terrace on the right is faced with stone, and the front walls match.  Supposedly, some of this fine stone came from the Georgian bridge across the Exe.

And now I leave you to return, to look out for other “things”

 

A walk along the walls part 6 (Magdalen Road)

 

Most historians agree that Magdalen Road is one of the Roman roads into Exeter, and has retained its importance for centuries.  Unfortunately, the Romans left the city with a road system that suited the legions and not the citizens of the 21^st century.  This month, we’ll walk from the village along Magdalen Road towards Heavitree.  Because it has always been a busy road, it has seen much development and redevelopment and there’s not a great deal of the past to be seen by walkers.

Leaving the Mount Radford, immediately one comes to a narrow stretch; it was wide enough for traffic in the 19^th century when the brick walls on the right were built as boundaries for the houses in St Leonard’s Road.  On the left are modern walls, and all the way to Barrack Road, the left-hand side of the road follows a line which is centuries old.  There is a very short stretch of stone wall before the road opens out, revealing the Art Deco building on the right.  Now flats and business offices, for many years it was the showroom for Kastner Autos – a listed building.

Opposite, almost hidden under the hedge by the wall of College Avenue, is a small stone marking the boundary between of Exeter and Heavitree; there may have been a gallows here.  We pass several brick-built houses on the right dating from the early 20^th century with matching brick walls.  They are examples of an era in the city when numerous well-built brick buildings were constructed around the city.  Marlborough Road has further examples. 

On the left the hedge bounding the university car park provides a little glimpse of wildness, but like most institutional boundaries, there is little botanical diversity.  Trees in the car park do add to the interest.  Further up, on the opposite side the walls and hedges of the modern properties are similar.

This is where a little more of the ancient road pattern appears, with a coach house on the right, Baring Crescent opposite and several houses with their origins in the 19^th century.  The construction of the crescent must have encouraged wealthy people to want houses in the vicinity. 

It looks as if the foundations of the walls at the “chicane” are old walls using traditional stone construction, with the wall of the first houses in Baring Crescent being topped with cob and rendered with a tile cap.  At some stage a doorway was let into the wall, and then blocked.  There’s an Ordnance Survey benchmark in the brick on the left of the doorway.  What has happened between here and the shops looks very confused; obviously there has been a twentieth century insertion, but the old tiling along the top has been kept.  But why does the (very) rough stone wall beyond have tiling as well?  Perhaps it was once rendered and the tiles were there to protect the render?  It is a section of small and ill-assorted stones, suggesting it wasn’t a field boundary.

The line of four cottages and businesses are an interesting addition to the street scene.  They date from the early 1880s, and were originally called Baring Cottages.  Oddly, they were numbered from Heavitree towards Exeter, so the first one you come to was once number 4.  They have varied in use between private houses, business offices and shops.  So, at different times, you could have found a shoemaker, a dairyman and café, a tailor, groceries, DIY shop and builders. 

Now compare the walls on your left with those opposite.  Both could be described as having a stone base with bricks above, but they are quite different.  One has four brick courses and a cap, the other more than 30 courses on the stone base and a cap.  The difference is in the dates.  The wall by the shops probably dates from the creation of Baring Crescent, and used a lot of local stone.  Opposite, Victoria Park Road is much later, and the wall demonstrates ostentation --- the owners could afford a lot of bricks, but still needed a stone base for their wall.  There’s a letterbox in the wall, dating from the reign of George the 5th.  During his reign, nobody expected that there would be a King George the 6th as Edward  (the 8^th) was first in line to the throne.  So the letterbox simply reads “G R” without a number.

The east side of Victoria Park Road starts with a very rough old wall; it was good that the builders of the 1930s house in Magdalen Road decided to keep this link with the past.  (Until after the First World War, Victoria Park Road was named Victoria Terrace.  However, long before that, the tennis club was known as the Victoria Park Club, or even Victoria Park Tennis and Croquet Club, where tennis and croquet could be played.)

You could stop here and return to the village, or make a loop with the roads on the right, with the very fine 19^th century houses in Victoria Park Road and Lyndhurst Road (which was originally called Albert Terrace to match Victoria’s royal spouse).  Or, go a little further to the last old walls of Magdalen Road, one on the left of the yard of the redeveloped school and the brick and stone wall at the end of Manston Terrace.  For the latter, there have obviously been small buildings in the past, leaving their mark on the brickwork.  An old map calls the building on the north a “lodge” and marks a tiny annexe to the south.

This is the last of the six walks along the walls; thank you to those who have enjoyed reading about them, or have followed them for yourselves.

A fourth walk along the walls

 

The walls that we have visited so far this year have generally been in very good condition; although there is little to document their construction, one senses that in our neighbourhood, the boundary walls to houses and property were well built.  One local wall which always grates with me is the one opposite the playground at the foot of Salmon Pool Lane.  There, the stones and bricks have been thrown together with no sense of craftsmanship.  The wall is probably one which was reconstructed when the area was developed and old material was used --- but that is not an excuse for something so dreadful!

Enough of grumpiness!  This time, we’ll walk from the village towards the river, starting in Wonford Road.  Just before Radnor Place, an old Heavitree stone wall on the right has had its height neatly increased with bricks.  On the left, the entry to Radnor Place is marked with a protective stone (a “guard stone”) on the corner to keep wheels away from the wall, and then there is a pleasant cob wall with tiled top.  This too is protected from wheels coming too close.

On the wall to the right of Wonford Road there are two Ordnance Survey benchmarks; it is very curious to find two so close together.  The courtyard of the Quadrant on the left has granite gateposts ---and underneath the courtyard, some of the houses still have coal cellars.  After all, you could never expect sacks of coal to be brought through the front door, could you?  Some railings survived the salvage drive of the Second World War, and give us a chance to imagine how the whole wall would have appeared a hundred years ago.  If you divert a short way up the slope of Wonford Road, there’s another very nice tiled wall at the back of Woodhayes. 

The low walls around Mount Radford Crescent seem to have been built for appearance, and give a nice unity to the road.  The left side of Radford Road starts with a wall of mixed fine stones, and then takes us past the archway behind the Quadrant; here there’s a high wall with a great deal of Heavitree Breccia, and this is matched on the right hand side by the retaining wall.

Just before the 20mph sign on the left and the safety railing, turn up the passageway on the left.  This runs between two brick walls.  On one side is an old wall with brick columns at intervals, and on the opposite side is a much more modern wall that bounds the houses of Vine Close and the end of Cedars Road.  Where the passageway turns left, the old wall continues for a short way.  I don’t know when the passageway was created; older maps show a garden with a fountain where the houses now stand. 

Turn into Cedars Road; at some stage, the road’s name changed from Cedar Road; it was built on the back garden of Mount Radford House after the stables and outhouses were demolished.  Despite appearances, the houses were not all built at the same time.  One indication of this gradual development is to be found by looking down as you walk along the pavement.  There are drainage channels crossing the pavement, some with the names of the builder of adjacent properties.  J.M.Soper, Shepherd & Sons, Mitchell & Sons.  Some of these pieces of street furniture are patterned without names, or carry the name of the foundry, Garton and King, who made a great deal of ironwork (drain gratings, manhole covers and other access covers) for the streets of the city (and the company remains in business today).

The end of Cedars Road is opposite the high side wall of St Leonard’s Church; just to the right of the bus shelter the nature of the wall changes.  Here were the footings for the private footbridge from Mount Radford House to the church.  Once again, the wall is made of a wide variety of stones, topped in places with brick.

Now you can choose to walk down to the river between the church boundary and Larkbeare.  Or return to the village; if you go along Cedars Road, use the pavement opposite to the one you used, to spot further designs of drainage channels.  From Cedars Road, a passage leads to the corner of Barnardo Road and past the ornate gateposts of the house which formerly boasted that fountain and garden.  Now (if you are sufficiently curious) walk along West Grove Road, where there are hardware examples labelled Walter Otton --- a name familiar to many Exonians for that family’s remarkable hardware shop that used to be in Fore Street. 

David Smith

lookatStLs.blogspot