Old Exeter

Exeter cathedral was founded in the 11th century and completed in the 15th century. The ‘image screen’ addition to the west front was created between c.1340 and c.1470.

The design of the west front involved more than one master mason and a significant major decision which resulted in a very decorative façade being superimposed on a very much plainer original lower level.

This very decorative façade known as the ‘image screen’ includes a considerable number of sculpted figures set in niches. Originally there were only two tiers. In the fifteenth century a third tier was added. This meant that the total screen now covered the lowest section of the large west window and mostly hid the two windows either side.

Except for erosion, repairs and some changes to the figures this is what is seen today.

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was a composer, pianist, conductor and transcriber of music who was born in Hungary.

During his lifetime he was recognised as the greatest living pianist and for many years made a living full-time touring giving recitals. At the end of the 1840s he settled in Weimar and concentrated on composing.

He visited Britain three times. Once as a teenager, again in 1840 and then later when he was in his seventies. Liszt was at his very best as a pianist in the 1840s.

What is known as Mol’s Coffee House was built in 1596 and is a fine Grade 1 listed timber framed building. The ground floor was converted to function as a shop in the nineteenth century.

The magnificent oriel windows are a feature of the structure and on the first floor the glazing spreads across the full width of the façade. Behind the first floor window is a superb Elizabethan oak panelled room with an unusual plasterwork ceiling (not open to visitors).

The Dutch-style gable is a nineteenth century addition.