Browse Items (9 total)

The seal shows the front of a church. The earliest example of its use is on a document of 1133. At that date Exeter's Norman cathedral’s towers would not have been built, and the old Saxon cathedral was still standing.
The depiction could show…

The contents of a single rubbish pit found at Goldsmith Street in Exeter are shown in this image.
To the rear are large quantities of animal bone - principally cattle but also sheep and pig. The top of a tub or keg of riven oak is marked with a…

More than 40 examples of small earthenware crucibles such as this have been recovered from late Saxon and Norman deposits in various tenements at the centre of Exeter. They range in date from the 10th century to c. 1200. They show that metalworking…

Simple bone tools of the types shown here are known from various early medieval towns. They were used in different stages of cloth production. The circular spindle whorls, sawn from the long-bones of cattle, would weight a spindle, used in spinning…

A mint striking silver pence for the king had been established at Exeter in Alfred’s reign but its early issues are very rare. Output expanded enormously under Aethelred II (‘the Unready’), when mints throughout the country were used to provide…

The Middle Saxon cemetery in the Close of Exeter Cathedral consisted of a mix of burials: some simple inhumations, others ‘charcoal burials’. One of the latter type is shown here: the body of an adult has been laid on a bed of charcoal, which…

The hedge on the horizon, a familiar feature on the road out from Countess Wear to the M5 interchange at Sandy Gate, is an unremarkable feature of modern Exeter. It is nevertheless very ancient, being part of the boundary of the estate of Topsham…

A view of the flat-headed arches used in the gatehouse of the Norman castle at Rougemont in Exeter. These are a feature of Anglo-Saxon architecture and suggest that William forced Anglo-Saxon masons to build his castle.
More information on…

The granite shaft is decorated with simple interlaced patterns, broadly datable to the 10th or 11th centuries. It would formerly have been surmounted by a head in the form of a cross. Six such cross-shafts survive in Devon, the others being at…