Some History of the Interesting Buildings near SPCK Bookshop in Exeter

The Ship Inn


"Next to mine own ship I do most love that old "Shippe" in Exon, a tavern in Fyssh Street, as the people do call it, or as the Clergy will have it, St Martin's Lane." Sir Francis Drake 1857.

The Ship Inn shares a wall with the present SPCK bookshop, and the entrances to the two buildings are now very close to one another. Before St Martin's gate was demolished, however, the SPCK buildings had entrances into Catherine Street(formerly Little Kalendarhay), and so The Ship was outside the Cathedral Close.

This old Inn has seen much history. Drake frequented it, it was occupied by Royalist troops under Cavalier Captain Bennet during the siege of Exeter by Roundhead (Parliament) troops under Fairfax in the Civil War, and it was nearly destroyed in 1710 when a mob tried to burn it down.

St Martins Church

Just across Catherine Street from the Bookshop is the little Parish Church of St Martins. It is rarely used now but the original church on this site was completed in 1065. The existing building is from the fifteenth century and is built of a red sandstone known as Heavitree stone.

St Martin of Tours is the person to whom the Church was dedicated. He is known as the Patron Saint of beggars and drinkers. This seems quite appropriate even today with the close proximity of several Pubs, and with the number of buskers who play music on the street corner outside the Church. These buskers either serenade or torture the staff of the Bookshop according to their talent.

Mol's Coffee House

This photogenic building now occupied by Elands (known for maps and stationery) is a favourite subject for postcards and tourist cameras.

Chips Barber describes it well: "Mol's Coffee House is not a coffee house in the true sense. However, it is believed that it was a subscription coffee house from about 1700 to 1824. Mol was not a gangsters girlfriend - he was Thomas Mol, an Italian, who was at these premises in 1596, many decades before coffee was even introduced into England. It has also been suggested that this was a favourite rendezvous for Devon's famous sea dogs when plotting to thwart the Spanish Armada. It is believed that the famous seamen to meet there included Hawkins, Grenville, Frobisher and Drake.

The building contains one of the finest oak panelled rooms in the country; it has a star shaped ceiling, believed to be the only one of its kind in Europe. There are 230 panes of glass and not one of them is a perfect square."

The Royal Clarence Hotel

The Royal Clarence, built in 1769, was the first such building in England to be called a Hotel, named such by its French landlord, Pierre Berlon. In fact it was just called The Hotel until the Duchess of Clarence visited. Other famous visitors include Lord Nelson and Queen Victoria's father, the Duke of Kent, and Nicholas I who was to be Czar of Russia.

Perhaps more significant for Exeter than all these famous visitors, were important meetings that took place in the hotel to discuss issues ranging from gas lighting for the city to a school for the deaf.

A pub called The Well is now a part of the Hotel complex and has an interesting basement. Down the stairs can be found the original Roman well after which the pub is named. The building was built on part of the Cathedral graveyard and has a macabre guardian: the skeleton of a woman in a glass case. She is thought to have been the victim of a plague. This is a natural starting point for the annual ghost tour of the city on Halloween night

The SPCK Bookshop is surrounded by fascinating historical buildings, and we have not even touched on the Cathedral itself which it overlooks.

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