Exeter ( EK-sit-ər) is a cathedral city and the county town of Devon in South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately 36 mi (58 km) northeast of Plymouth and 65 mi (105 km) southwest of Bristol. In 2024, Exeter had a population of 137,894, making it the second largest settlement in Devon after Plymouth. Under local government restructuring plans Exeter will, with the addition of parishes from East Devon, Teignbridge and Mid Devon, become the Exeter unitary authority from 2028.
The history of Exeter began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort of Isca Dumnoniorum c. AD 55. The city was held by Saxons against Viking attacks and then conquered by the Normans. Exeter Cathedral was founded in the mid 11th century and the city became a religious centre during the Middle Ages. In the early modern period, Exeter became an affluent centre for the trade in wool. Experiencing only limited industrialisation, by the First World War the city was in relative economic decline. After the Second World War, much of the city centre was rebuilt.
Exeter is one of the largest and fastest growing cities in South West England, and a centre for education, business, and domestic tourism.
It is home to two of the constituent campuses of the University of Exeter: Streatham and St Luke's. The city is connected internationally by Exeter Airport; to the rest of the United Kingdom by Exeter St David's railway station; and by road by the M5 motorway, whose south-west exit is just south of the city.
The city retains significant examples of medieval, Tudor, and Georgian architecture.
The name of Exeter derives from the Old English Escanceaster, from the anglicised form of the river now known as the Exe and the Old English suffix -ceaster (as in Dorchester and Gloucester), used to mark important fortresses or fortified towns (from Latin castrum, meaning fortress, or castra, military camp). The name "Exe" is a separate development of the Brittonic name—meaning "water" or, more exactly, "full of fish" (cf. Welsh pysg, pl. "fish")—that also appears in the English Axe and Esk and the Welsh Usk (Wysg).
Exeter began as settlements on a dry ridge ending in a spur overlooking a navigable river teeming with fish, with fertile land nearby. Although there have been no major prehistoric finds, these advantages suggest the site was occupied early. Coins from the Hellenistic kingdoms suggest the existence of a settlement trading with the Mediterranean as early as 250 BC.
In c. AD 55, the Romans established a 42-acre (17 ha) fort (Castrum) named Isca at this site. The fort served as the southwest terminus of the Fosse Way (part of the Antonine Itinerary) and base for the 5,000-man Second Augustan Legion. An unplanned community (vicus) of natives and the soldiers' families grew up around it, which served as the tribal capital of the Dumnonii. When the fortress was abandoned c. AD 75, its grounds were converted to civilian use: its very large bathhouse was replaced by a forum and a basilica, and a smaller-scale bath was erected to the southeast.
In the late 2nd century, the ditch and rampart defences around the old fortress were replaced by a bank and wall enclosing a much larger area, some 92 acres (37 hectares). The settlement seems to have been most prosperous in the first half of the 4th century: more than a thousand Roman coins have been found around the city and there is evidence for copper and bronze working, a stock-yard, and markets for the livestock, crops, and pottery produced in the surrounding countryside. The absence of coins dated after 380 suggests a rapid decline by this point.
Nothing is certainly known of Exeter from the time of the Roman withdrawal from Britain around 410 until the seventh century, when it was held by the Saxons (to whom it was known as Escanceaster) who had arrived after defeating the British Dumnonians at Peonnum in Somerset in 658. In 876, the city was attacked and briefly captured by Danish Vikings before Alfred the Great drove them out the next summer. Over the next few years, he elevated Exeter to one of the four burhs in Devon, rebuilding its walls on the Roman lines. These permitted the city to repel another attack and siege by the Danes in 893. Æthelstan again strengthened the walls around 928, and at the same time drove out the remaining Britons from the city. After failing again in 1001, the Danes were finally able to plunder it in 1003 when they were let in, for unknown reasons, by the French reeve of Emma of Normandy, who had been given the city as part of her dowry on her marriage to Æthelred the Unready the previous year.
In 1068, Exeter was a stronghold of Anglo-Saxon resistance to the Norman Conquest as the residence of Gytha Thorkelsdóttir, the mother of the late Harold Godwinson. William the Conqueror's siege of the city ended in negotiation and generous terms for the defenders, although William had Rougemont Castle built to strengthen Norman control over the area. Saxon properties were transferred into Norman hands and, on the death of Bishop Leofric in 1072, the Norman Osbern FitzOsbern was appointed his successor. In 1136, early in the Anarchy, Rougemont Castle was held by Baldwin de Redvers for three months against Stephen of Blois, submitting only when supplies had been exhausted. During the siege, Stephen built an earthen fortification at the site now known (erroneously) as Danes Castle.
Exeter was relatively prosperous by the end of the High Middle Ages. The city held a weekly market from at least 1213, and by 1281 Exeter was the only town in the South West to have three market days per week. There are also records of seven annual fairs, the earliest of which dates from 1130, and all of which continued until at least the early 16th century. Until the expulsion of the Jews of England in 1290, Exeter was home to England's most westerly Jewish community. Sophisticated aqueduct systems brought drinking water into the city from springs in the neighbouring parish of St Sidwell's, partially via a network of tunnels, or underground passages.
In 1537, the city was made a county corporate. In 1549, the city successfully withstood a month-long siege by the so-called Prayer Book rebels. The insurgents occupied its suburbs, burnt down two of the city gates and attempted to undermine the city walls, but eventually abandoned the siege after being defeated by the army of Edward VI. From 1555 to 1568, John Hooker was chamberlain of the city and oversaw several schemes, including provisions for orphans.
Exeter was secured for Parliament at the beginning of the English Civil War, but it remained under pressure from the Royalists until, in September 1643, it was captured by the Cornish Royalist Army led by Prince Maurice. Queen Henrietta Maria stayed in Exeter for the birth of her youngest daughter, Henrietta, in 1644. The city was one of the final Royalist cities to fall into Parliamentarian hands, its surrender being negotiated in April 1646 at Poltimore House by Thomas Fairfax.
During this period, Exeter was an economically powerful city, with a strong trade of wool. This was partly due to the surrounding area which was "more fertile and better inhabited than that passed over the preceding day" according to Count Lorenzo Magalotti who visited the city when he was 26 years old. Magalotti writes of over thirty thousand people being employed in the county of Devon as part of the wool and cloth industries, merchandise that was sold to "the West Indies, Spain, France and Italy". Celia Fiennes also visited Exeter during this period, in the early 18th century. She remarked on the "vast trade" and "incredible quantity" in Exeter, recording that "it turns the most money in a week of anything in England", between £10,000 and £15,000.
The Industrial Revolution largely bypassed Exeter due to the scarcity of nearby coal deposits, although industry did develop on the basis of locally available agricultural products; a site was established on drained marshland to the west of the city, at Exe Island, to make use of hydropower. Extensive canal redevelopments expanded Exeter's economy, and in 1778 a new bridge replaced the 500-year-old Old Exe Bridge.