What to See in Exeter - Top Sights and Attractions

Museum in Exeter, England. Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery is a museum and art gallery in Exeter, Devon, the largest in the city. It holds significant and diverse collections in areas such as zoology, anthropology, fine art, local and overseas archaeology, and geology. Altogether the museum holds over one million objects, of which a small percentage is on permanent public display. It is a 'Major Partner Museum' under the Arts Council England administered programme of strategic investment, which means RAMM receives funding to develop its services. RAMM receives this funding in partnership with Plymouth City Museum & Art Gallery. Previously they were described as 'hub museums' under the 'Renaissance' Programme for regional museums which operated between 2002–11 and funded by the now defunct Museums Libraries & Archives Council.

Founded in 1868, the museum is housed in a Gothic Revival building of local New Red Sandstone that has undergone several extensions during its history; most recently, the museum was re-opened on 15 December 2011 after a redevelopment lasting four years and costing £24M. Since its re-opening the museum has received several awards.^[1]

Building in England. Powderham Castle is a fortified manor house situated within the parish and former manor of Powderham, within the former hundred of Exminster, Devon, about 6 miles south of the city of Exeter and 1⁄4 mile north-east of the village of Kenton, where the main public entrance gates are located. It is a Grade I listed building. The park and gardens are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

It is situated on flat, formerly marshy ground on the west bank of the River Exe estuary where it is joined by its tributary the River Kenn. On the opposite side of the Exe is the small village of Lympstone. Starting with a structure built sometime after 1390, the present castle was expanded and altered extensively in the 18th and 19th centuries. The castle remains the seat of the Courtenay family, Earls of Devon.^[3]

The Devon County War Memorial is a First World War memorial, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and situated on Cathedral Green in Exeter, the county town of Devon, in the south west of England. It is one of fifteen War Crosses designed by Lutyens with similar characteristics, and one of two to serve as a civic memorial in a city. The first proposal for the county's war memorial was to complete the construction of a cloister at Exeter Cathedral to be dedicated to Devon's war dead, but this scheme was abandoned due to lack of funds. After considering multiple proposals, the Devon County War Memorial Committee commissioned Lutyens to design a War Cross instead. The committee chose to site the memorial on the green of Exeter Cathedral after scouting several locations. A war memorial for Exeter itself was being considered concurrently, but the committees for the two projects failed to work together, resulting in two separate memorials—the county memorial by the cathedral and Exeter City War Memorial in Northernhay Gardens.

The memorial takes the form of a simple cross. Hewn from a single block of granite quarried from Haytor on Dartmoor, it stands just to the west of the cathedral, in alignment with the altar. The cross stands on a granite plinth, which itself sits on three steps. It was unveiled by the Prince of Wales on 16 May 1921. After archaeological excavations took place in the 1970s, the area was remodelled to create a processional way between the memorial and the cathedral. The memorial is a grade II* listed building, part of a "national collection" of Lutyens' war memorials. Since 2015, all of Lutyens' memorials in England have been protected by listed building status.^[5]

Building in England. Killerton is an 18th-century house in Broadclyst, Exeter, Devon, England, which, with its hillside garden and estate, has been owned by the National Trust since 1944 and is open to the public. The National Trust displays the house as a comfortable home. On display in the house is a collection of 18th- to 20th-century costumes, originally known as the Paulise de Bush collection, shown in period rooms.

The estate covers some 2590 hectares (25.9 km2, 6400 acres). Included in the Estate is a steep wooded hillside with the remains of an Iron Age Hill fort on top of it, also known as Dolbury, which has also yielded evidence of Roman occupation, thought to be a possible fort or marching camp within the Hill fort.

Killerton House itself and the Bear's Hut summerhouse in the grounds are Grade II* listed buildings. The gardens are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.^[8]

Wedding venue in Exeter, England. Rougemont Castle, also known as Exeter Castle, is the historic castle of the city of Exeter, Devon, England. It was built into the northern corner of the Roman city walls starting in or shortly after the year 1068, following Exeter's rebellion against William the Conqueror. In 1136 it was besieged for three months by King Stephen. An outer bailey, of which little now remains, was added later in the 12th century.

The castle is mentioned in Shakespeare's play Richard III in a reference to that king's visit to Exeter in 1483. Devon's county court was located here from at least 1607, and the three Devon Witches—the last people in England to be executed for witchcraft—were tried and convicted at the Exeter Assizes in 1682.

All the buildings inside the walls were swept away in the 1770s to make way for a new courthouse, which was extended by the addition of wings in 1895 and 1905. Because of its function as a court, the interior of the castle was not open to the public until the court moved to a new site in 2004. The entire site was later sold to a developer whose stated aim was to transform it into "the Covent Garden of the South West".

The castle is named after the red stone found in the hill, and used in the construction of the original buildings, of which the large early Norman gatehouse is the main remaining feature. It is surrounded on three sides by the Rougemont Gardens and Northernhay Gardens, public parks now maintained by Exeter City Council.^[15]

Park in Exeter, England. Northernhay Gardens are located in Exeter, Devon, England, on the northern side of Rougemont Castle. They are the oldest public open space in England, being originally laid out in 1612 as a pleasure walk for Exeter residents. The gardens are Grade II listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens, and are maintained by Exeter City Council.

The site was originally quarried in Roman times for stone for the city walls. The gardens incorporate a stretch of Roman wall and the only length of Saxon town wall to be seen in England. They form a crescent shape bounded to the north by the West of England Main Line and Exeter Central railway station, and to the south by the castle and Rougemont Gardens. Their eastern entrance is at the head of Northernhay Place and the gardens open on the west to Northernhay Gate.

The early park was destroyed in the Civil War, in 1642, when large defensive ditches were dug outside the walls for the city's defence. Soon after the Restoration, in 1664, the city set about restoring the park, planting hundreds of young elms and laying out gravel paths. There has been a tradition of maintaining the park as a major city amenity since that time.

The gardens underwent a major re-landscaping in 1860, and between 1860 and 1895 received an important group of monuments to major Victorian figures in the city's history. The Deer Stalker (1875) by E. B. Stephens (1815–1882), is a significant piece of Victorian art that was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1876. Stephens also sculpted the statues of John Dinham, who was a local philanthropist, and Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Baronet, in the gardens.

In the 17th and 18th centuries Northernhay Gardens were affectionately known by the familiar name "Norney".

The statue of the Conservative politician Stafford Northcote (1887) is by Joseph Boehm. The Volunteer Memorial (1895), designed by S. K. Greenslade, commemorates the formation of the 1st Rifle Volunteers in 1852, and the Exeter War Memorial by local sculptor John Angel was constructed in 1923. The gardens also contain a bandstand.

In the mid 1900s the mature avenue of elms lining the central walk succumbed to Dutch Elm Disease and were felled. Subsequent planting has sought to provide all-year-round colour and interest. The gardens offer views over large parts of the city, and events are hosted there throughout the year.^[16]

Building in Exeter, England. St Martin's Church in Cathedral Close, Exeter, Devon, England was built in the 15th century. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building, and is now a redundant church in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. It was vested in the Trust on 1 August 1995.

It is built of Heavitree stone and has slate roofs. The chancel arch is thought to be the oldest part of the building, and may date from the previous church on the site which was consecrated on 6 July 1065 by Bishop Leofric. There are traces of Anglo-Saxon long-and-short work high in the north-east corner of the nave. The tower was added in 1675.

The interior contains 17th and 18th century monuments, reredos and altar rails, some of which were brought from the nearby St Paul's, which was demolished in 1936. The south window contains a few fragments of medieval glass. At the west end is a panelled gallery with the painted arms of Bishop Trelawny (1688—1707) and the City of Exeter, both flanking the royal coat of arms.^[19]

Devon County Council is the county council administering the English county of Devon. Based in the city of Exeter, the council covers the non-metropolitan county area of Devon. Members of the council are elected every four years to represent the electorate of each county division, almost all being nominated by the major national political parties.

The population of the area administered by the council was estimated at 795,286 in 2018, making it the largest local authority in South West England.

Devon is an area with "two-tier" local government, meaning that the county is divided into non-metropolitan districts carrying out less strategic functions, such as taking most planning decisions. In Devon there are eight such districts, each with its own district, borough, or city council.^[27]

Exeter Quay, also known as Exeter Quayside, is a part of the city of Exeter next to the River Exe and the Exeter Ship Canal. It was first used as a port in prehistoric times when a sandstone ledge was used to unload the ships of overseas traders. However, by 1381 the Countess Weir had blocked the river to shipping. In 1566 a canal was completed to provide access for ships. Over time the number of ships using the quayside increased and so the quay was expanded in the late 17th century. Further expansion occurred in 1830 when a new canal basin was dug. However, in 1840 the railways reached Exeter and the shipping began to decline. No longer used for shipping, the quayside is now mostly used for leisure included in the links below.

A manually operated cable ferry known as the Butts Ferry crosses the Exe at Exeter Quayside.^[34]