The Close

The close was walled and gated from soon after 1283, when one of the administrators was murdered there.

From late Roman times onwards the northern part was used as a burial ground and for a thousand years (from around 600 until the mid 1600s), apart from interments at monastic houses, it was the only place in Exeter where burials were allowed. (John Allan, Cathedral Archaeologist, estimates that there are at least half a million people buried there).

Some of the northern close was excavated in the early 1970s when a number of cemeteries dating from the 5^th to the 17^th centuries were discovered. A Roman bath-house was found a few yards from the image screen. When the Victorian church of St Mary Major (which stood about 50 m  to the south-west of the cathedral) was demolished in 1971, the foundations of a large Saxon church were discovered underneath it - the first home of Exeter Cathedral in 1050.

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