It’s a little like Harry Potter: one moment you are strolling through Exeter’s Princesshay shopping centre, little different from retail malls all over the world, with the same bright shop displays tempting you to spend. The next minute, entering an anonymous-looking door – easily missed between the temptations offered by Zara and Next on either side – you descend a few steps, and suddenly find yourself in the claustrophobic world of narrow Medieval passages cut out of the bare rock. Don’t worry, though: you are not going to encounter orcs or Voldemort’s minions. The worst you will suffer, if you are larger than average in height or build, is a loss of dignity as you squeeze and bend in some of the more constricted places.
Many of the people who visit Exeter are unaware of the unique heritage that lies beneath their feet as they hit the shops on the city’s High Street. With the generous support of Exeter City Council, archaeologist and historian Mark Stoyle, Professor of Early Modern History at Southampton University, has written a book that should change all that: telling the story of how the city’s unique public water-supply system evolved.
Tracing the pipes
First, one has to discard the image of Roman-style masonry structures carrying water into the city: Exeter had no Pont du Gard. Instead, in common with many other Medieval cities, Exeter’s first external water-supply was brought into the city using lead pipes buried in pipe trenches. Just to the north-east of the city walls is the parish of St Sidwell. Medieval legend says that pure water gushed out of the ground when St Sidwell was martyred on the spot; geology tells us that the shales of the Culm Measures meet Exeter’s sandstone at this point, creating a spring line.
