A Brief History (1)

St Stephen's church is a Grade II* listed building situated in a conservation area in the very centre of Exeter. It is a modest building whose history and present use are more interesting than its outward appearance would suggest. Excavations show that it stands at the point where the Roman road to London passed through the north-east gate of the legionary fortress and adjacent civil settlement. When the decayed Roman town was re-founded by the order of King Alfred in the 880s this location was now mid-point of a broad market street; and its place opposite the medieval guildhall was to fit St Stephen’s for a significant role in the community. In 1086 Domesday Book records that the building belonged to the Bishop of Exeter; and William the Conqueror’s nephew William Warelwast, who was made bishop in 1107, believed that it was his possession of the feudal benefice called St Stephen’s ‘fee’ that allowed him and his successors a seat in Parliament.

From this period survives the crypt, revealed during restoration work in 1826 and sealed up again. A drawing made at the time depicts a low-vaulted Romanesque design with squat circular-section freestone piers. Later medieval masons preferred to use the local coarse red Heavitree stone when rebuilding the walls. One notable medieval alteration was the addition of an east-end chapel housed in a bow raised over the public pathway. Just visible from the body of the church, this chapel was approached by a flight of ten steps through a narrow arch, now blocked. Externally to the south of the bow can be seen a former doorway, the purpose of which is unknown.

During the Commonwealth (1649-1660) the number of churches in Exeter was reduced and St Stephen’s, declared redundant, was sold for £250 to one Toby Allen, who used the crypt as a stable. The building above fell into disrepair and the tower was partly pulled down. The preservation of the disgraced Charles I’s 1640 coat-of-arms, still in the building, was presumably due to an interested party. In 1660 the parish was re-established and recovered the building, whereupon a city merchant and alderman, George Potter, financed its complete restoration. (His memorial can be found on the south wall.) Although accidentally once burnt out, the work was finished by 1664. Fashionable box-pews were apparently provided ― their line marked by the panelled dado around the walls. And at the back was built an organ-loft or gallery (reached by a stair on the south side), the line of its sloping floor still visible over the entrance from the High Street. Wall-memorials continued to record the lives of local worthies.

Two centuries later in 1826 the tower again required repairs, and the building had to be mortgaged for £100 ― possibly a unique event in the history of any church! Now contemporary taste introduced slender neo-Gothic quatrefoil columns; and because the houses that then crowded up against the south side made the interior gloomy, quatrefoil skylights (now blocked) were inserted. The octagonal neo-Gothic font appears to date from this time. The organ had been taken down in 1772, and the removal of the gallery in 1895 made the interior more spacious.

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