Exeter
was established as a town by the Roman Army by the side of the River
Exe in about AD 80. As it was the lowest point at which the river
could be crossed, it became the gateway to the south-west tip of England.
A great deal of trade passed through the port on the river until 1290
when the Countess of Devon arranged for the building a weir across
the Exe, three miles south of the city. It took nearly 300 years for
the city to gain permission to remove the weir. In 1564 the city commissioned
England's first ship canal to help to rectify its declining trade.
When Parliament gave permission for the Great
Western Railway in 1835, Bristol merchants
began to argue for an extension of the proposed line to Exeter. Permission
was granted in 1836 and Isambard Brunel
was appointed engineer. The Bristol &
Exeter line was completed in 1844.
(1)
Daniel Defoe, A Tour Through the Whole
Island of Great Britain (1724)
Exeter is full of gentry, and good company,
and yet full of trade and manufactures. The serge market held every
week is very well worth a stranger's seeing, and next to the market
in Leeds, is the greatest in England. The people assure me that at
this market is generally sold from 60 to 80, and sometimes a hundred
thousand pounds value in serge a week. They have the River Esk here,
a very considerable river. The channel of the river has been widened,
deepened and cleansed and the ships now come up to the city, and there
with ease both deliver and take in their goods.
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