A walk round lockdown Exeter and Exeter literary walks: Heritage Open Days 2022

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Exeter literary walks. Introduction

A guide to literary Exeter

This guide results from a Men's Walk round Exeter on 20 March 2021 to raise funds for Hospiscare and it has been revised for Heritage Open Days 2021. The original walk took in an eight mile circuit as required by Hospiscare, and was designed to cover sites in and around the City which have literary associations, inspired by Exeter's designation as Britain's UNESCO city of literature at the end of 2019. The first sites visited were supplemented the following Monday when a similar distance was covered around the University and along the riverside. The guide is being further developed both to serve as a gazetteer of Exeter's literary heritage and to highlight current literary activity as part of the UNESCO initiative and any suggestions for inclusion are welcomed. The guide has been split into six sections which group the sites within different areas of Exeter:

 

Walk 1. The Cathedral Close and the West Quarter.

Walk 2. The High Street and around.

Walk 3. East through Heavitree to Sowton and Pinhoe.

Walk 4. North to the University and Saint David.

Walk 5. South through Saint Leonard to Topsham.

Walk 6. West of the river: Saint Thomas, Exwick, Alphington and Ide.

 

The area covered by the walks is outlined below on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map of Exeter, dating from 1809. The open landscape depicted on that map shows that the walks suggested outside the walled city are not intended to be followed slavishly. The sites are scattered and sometimes not worth the long trek to hunt each of them out as there is often little of historic interest to be seen.