Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Hardcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> Exeter like all cities has had a continual process of redevelopment in which demolition or destruction is a necessary part; for two thousand years buildings have been built and subsequently for the most part deliberately either renovated rebuilt or demolished. The city’s great wealth in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the means of embellishing the townscape with rich examples of vernacular architecture. By 1942 there had been three centuries of peace with no wartime devastation and until then Exeter had not suffered the great sweeping fires that destroyed other local urban centres such as Tiverton and Honiton. This may have been due many buildings having stone party walls or the lack of thatch in the old walled city from the Elizabethan period if not earlier the closest thatched building was in Sidwell Street and even that was removed as long ago as 1882. Larger fires happened immediately outside the walls such as in Paris Street in 1717 when some thirty houses were destroyed Change has instead generally taken place on a piecemeal basis through either accidental fire or deliberate change. Also no building remains as originally built. The gatehouse to Rougemont Castle has a claim to being the city’s oldest building but stands as a ruin and the city walls. (MP)