Old Exe Bridge

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The Old Exe Bridge is the ruined remains of a medieval bridge across the River Exe in Exeter, Devon, England. Construction began about 1190 and was finished around 1214. It was the oldest bridge of its size in England and the oldest in Britain with a chapel built on it. It replaced earlier crossings used since Roman times.

The bridge was roughly 590 to 750 feet long (about 180 to 230 meters) and had about 17 or 18 arches. It carried the road diagonally from the West Gate of the city across the marshy floodplain. St Edmund’s Church was built on the bridge, and St Thomas’s Church stood on the riverbank nearby. The bridge also had timber-framed shops and houses from the 14th century, and land on the Exeter side was reclaimed to form Frog Street.

A chantry chapel for prayers was built opposite the church around 1257 and lasted until the Reformation. The bridge needed repairs many times; it partially collapsed in 1286 and again in 1384. By 1447 it was in poor condition, but repairs continued into the 16th century.

The bridge was managed by wardens who kept records, owned land and shops, and collected tolls to fund its upkeep. In the late 18th century, plans to widen the bridge led to the construction of a new three-arch masonry bridge upstream, completed in 1778. The medieval arches on the Exeter side were left in place, later buried or integrated into nearby buildings.

In 1905 a steel arch bridge replaced the 18th‑century span, and in 1969 a pair of reinforced concrete bridges took its place. During construction, some medieval arches were uncovered and restored, and the area around them was turned into a public park. Today about eight and a half arches survive above ground, with another three and a half buried. The remaining arches can be up to 20 feet high, and two of them form the crypt of St Edmund’s Church.

The Old Exe Bridge is now a scheduled monument and a Grade II listed building, protected from modification or demolition. Some of the bridge’s arches remain beneath modern roads, but enough survives to show how the ancient crossing looked and worked, including the church on the bridge and the row of houses and shops that once lined it.