Stone vaults, tidal water
Exeter
A compact cathedral city where medieval engineering, a working quayside and independent food and drink remain part of daily life.
- Best for
- Medieval history and time by the water
- Give it
- A day across the walkable centre and Quayside
- Don't miss
- The cathedral clock and its cat hole
The Fox verdict
History that still works for a living
Exeter brings a Gothic cathedral, medieval water tunnels and a working Quayside into a compact, walkable centre.
Start around Cathedral Green for the cathedral and the passages beneath the High Street, then make the walk down to the Quayside, where the Custom House and boat or bike hire turn the River Exe into part of the day.
Where to go
Places in Exeter
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesExeter Underground Passages
Vaulted medieval water tunnels first dug in 1346 to carry clean water to the cathedral clergy; they are the only such system open to the public in Britain.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 75 minutes
- Locality
- beneath the High Street
- Access
- The guided walk enters passages that are narrow, dark and low.
Exeter Custom House
A circa-1680 Custom House, believed to be Exeter's oldest brick building, with ornate 17th-century plaster ceilings and a visitor centre.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- The Quayside
Saddles & Paddles
Quayside hire for kayaks, canoes, paddleboards and bikes.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- Quayside
History & heritage
2 placesExeter Cathedral
The Cathedral of St Peter has the world's longest uninterrupted medieval stone vaulted ceiling and an astronomical clock dating from around 1484, with a round cat hole cut into the door below.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 75 minutes
- Locality
- Exeter
Exeter Quayside
A picturesque waterside quarter of historic warehouses, pubs and cafés, antique and craft shops, cannon on the cobbles, and boat and bike hire.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- The Quayside
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Three ways to explore Exeter
Signature outings
Clock, mice and the bishop's cat
Read the astronomical clock, then find the round hole cut into the door below so the cathedral cat could hunt mice drawn by the mechanism's animal-fat grease.
Warehouses, cobbles and the Exe
Walk among historic warehouses, cannon and antique or craft shops before choosing a waterside pub or café.
The Custom House story
Use the visitor centre to connect the circa-1680 Custom House with the canal that brought trade back to the city.
The city story
Exeter City Guide
A cathedral city of cellar bones, working history and water-bound escapes.
Skeletons, Streets and Student Exeter
The Well House Tavern, on Cathedral Yard, keeps a skeleton in its cellar. Nobody quite agrees what it is — a Black Death victim, a teenage Anglo-Saxon, or a mix of male and female bones — but it sits below a 16th-century timber-framed pub with Saxon stonework and a probably-Norman well. You drink upstairs.
That is roughly how Exeter works. It is a cathedral city on the River Exe, small enough to cross on foot, and most of its history is still in use. The centre wraps around Cathedral Green, a wide lawn that fills with independent markets on Saturdays and a Christmas market in December. Around it run the High Street, the Princesshay precinct, and Gandy Street, a narrow cobbled lane of independent shops that J.K. Rowling, who lived here as a student in the 1980s, is said to have had in mind for Diagon Alley.
Firehouse Pizza and Magdalen Road
For pizza and cider there's The Old Firehouse on New North Road, which does square pizzas and a hefty cider selection and has been a student institution for years. For a tasting menu there's Stage on Magdalen Road, in the Michelin Guide since 2022, where the menu changes daily and you don't find out what it is until it arrives.
Magdalen Road is the leafy, sought-after end of things — coffee roasters, delis, a wine shop, and The Mount Radford, a pub since 1850 doing Sunday roasts.
Quayside Brick and Cathedral Stone
Down at the Quayside, about fifteen minutes' flat walk below the centre, historic warehouses give way to waterside pubs, antique shops, cannon on the cobbles, and boat and bike hire from Saddles & Paddles. The 1680 Custom House is believed to be the oldest brick building in the city. It is the best place for a drink by the water.
The cathedral has the longest uninterrupted medieval stone vaulted ceiling in the world, though the detail people remember is smaller. Cut into the base of the door below the astronomical clock is a round hole — thought to be the world's oldest cat flap. The clock's mechanism was greased with animal fat, which drew mice, so in 1598 Bishop Cotton paid carpenters to cut a hole for the cathedral cat. The cats were on the payroll at 13 pence a week. The clock is reputed to be the source of "Hickory Dickory Dock."
Tunnels, Gardens and Topsham
Beneath the High Street run the Underground Passages, medieval water tunnels first dug in 1346 — the only such system in Britain open to the public, and narrow, dark and low. Above ground, Northernhay Gardens is the oldest public open space in England, laid out in 1612, and holds the only length of Saxon town wall visible in the country.
Four miles down the estuary sits Topsham, a pastel-painted former port ten minutes away by train, with one of Devon's best small-town food scenes and The Turf, a canalside pub with "no road access at all — just a beer garden by the canal." You walk to it.
Rails, Roads and the Exe
St Davids station puts London Paddington about two hours away, roughly half-hourly, with the M5 meeting the city at junction 30.
Avocets and Brent geese winter on the Topsham mudflats, and someone, most weeks, is paddling a kayak down the canal towards the Double Locks for a pint.
Stay around Devon
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Devon, linked directly to their property pages.
A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Exeter Cathedral — exeter-cathedral.org.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Exeter Underground Passages — exeter.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Exeter Quayside — visitexeter.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Exeter Custom House — exetercustomhouse.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Saddles & Paddles — visitexeter.com operator, sector body or destination organisation