St Petrock’s is the largest and most central of Exeter’s surviving ancient churches, lying close to the crossroads at the heart of the medieval city and spanning the space between the High Street and Cathedral Close. Although the original parish covered little more than two acres, it lay in the most prosperous commercial and residential part of the old town and attracted a wealthy congregation of merchants, civic officials and members of parliament. At the same time it was famous for its charitable concern for the city’s poor, giving the church a dual identity as a place of worship for both rich and poor.
Like many small urban churches, St Petrock’s was once scarcely visible, hemmed in on all sides by houses and shops. The widening of the High Street in 1905 and the destruction caused by the blitz in 1942 opened up the vista slightly, but the east and west ends of the building remain partially embedded in commercial premises. The church is possibly as ancient a foundation as any in Exeter, although documentary evidence begins only in the twelfth century. Its dedication is to St Petrock, a sixth‑century missionary from south Wales who worked along the Atlantic seaboard and was remembered particularly in Cornwall, where his most important foundation was at Bodmin. Interest in the saint was probably introduced to Exeter when Bodmin came into the possession of the diocese shortly before the Norman Conquest.
The early medieval church stood in the northwest corner of the cathedral precinct, which served as the town cemetery until the seventeenth century. Aligned west to east along the High Street, it appears to have been a straightforward building consisting of a western tower, nave and chancel. When the cathedral precinct was enclosed for safety in 1286, doors on both sides of St Petrock’s meant that passage through the church became one of the few recognised means of access to Cathedral Close, giving the building the function of a postern‑gate. Because the church was blocked by buildings on all sides except the cemetery to the south, any future development could only take place in that direction. This resulted in an interior described by Pevsner as among the most confusing of any church in England, its history being one of successive medieval and later enlargements towards the Cathedral Close.
Growing congregations in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries required demolition of the original south wall to provide three further aisles. The wall is now reinstated and divides the present church from the Homeless Centre which occupies the remainder of the building. The Reformation period was of particular importance for St Petrock’s, and during the Commonwealth it became one of the four remaining parish churches of Exeter under the ministry of the influential preacher Mark Downe. Evicted as a non‑conformist after the Restoration, he lived another twenty years and was buried beneath the floor of the church, his ledger stone now in the chancel.
From the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries survive several notable monuments. The royal coat of arms is a rare example from the reign of William III and Mary II. The impressive memorial to William and Mary Hooper, a merchant and former churchwarden, dates from 1682 and 1658 respectively and shows them in the costume of the puritan bourgeoisie, William also wearing the full‑bottomed curled wig fashionable after the Restoration. Nearby, two contemporary monuments flanked by Corinthian columns commemorate members of the Worth and Mayne families, with armorial bearings and Latin inscriptions praising their civic virtues. The High Street side of the building must have been clear of obstructions at this time, since two new windows were inserted; now blocked, they are visible only from the exterior.
Victorian changes included a radical remodelling in the 1820s by the architect Hedgeland, who extended the southernmost aisle and provided distinctive roofing with clerestory and skylight. Stained glass was supplied soon afterwards by Beer of Exeter. Because the building was as wide as it was long, it was difficult for the congregation to see or hear those leading worship. This was solved by constructing a new chancel on the south side, designed by Hayward, with a five‑light window onto Cathedral Close. The choir, organ and vestry were moved to the southern end, the old choir gallery removed, and new pews arranged to face the new chancel, effectively reorientating the entire church.
In the 1970s, after considerable debate about the future of the building, the decision was taken to divide the church physically, creating a smaller area for worship and leasing the remainder to St Petrock’s (Exeter) Ltd, a charity providing advice and support for homeless people. Much of the Victorian development lies within the Centre, glimpsed through the glass screen that divides the building. Mezzanine flooring and other wooden structures mask some of the nineteenth‑century work. The decoration and furnishings of Hayward’s chancel remain largely intact, with locally important glass by Drake of Exeter. The interior is notable for its irregular ground plan, no wall quite at right angles with another, the nave lit by the raised octagonal skylight and slender late‑medieval style pillars grouped around it.
Major changes in 2017 included levelling the floor, installing underfloor heating, replacing the dark gothic porch with a modern glass one, providing new storage (including units made from old pews), adding a sink area for serving hot drinks, cleaning all monuments and repainting walls and ceilings. Hanging from the roof‑light in the chancel is a metal Crown of Thorns by Exeter sculptor Matt Dingle, who also made the circular folding communion table. CCTV cameras were installed as a necessity of modern security.
Inside the church, the nave contains the font and several memorials. The monument to William and Mary Hooper dominates the nave, made of limestone and Ashburton marble. Mary died in 1658 and William in January 1682/3, the double year reflecting the shift from Lady Day to 1 January as the start of the civil year. The memorial to Francis and Alexandra Worth, who died in 1680 and 1686, is another monument in Ashburton stone. Its crest shows a gloved hand holding an eagle’s leg, an unusual heraldic device more common in continental heraldry. The royal coat of arms of William III and Mary II reminds parishioners of the monarch’s authority as head of the Church of England.
The chancel screen made by the Harrison Sutton Partnership in 1985 leads to the chancel, now also the Chapel of Justice, Peace and Creation. Here stands the prominent memorial to John and Faith Mayne, who died in 1679 and 1680. Their coat of arms includes three hands, a pun on the name Mayne, from the French “main”. Nearby is the memorial to Theodore Sheere, a surgeon from Barnstaple who died in 1782, and his wife who died in 1807. The Crown of Thorns sculpture hangs above. Ledger stones marking graves lie across the floor.
The war memorial commemorates twelve members of the parishes of St Petrock and St Kerrian who died in the Great War. St Kerrian’s, once located on North Street, was demolished in 1878 for road widening and its site absorbed into the Guildhall Shopping Centre; the parish was amalgamated with St Petrock’s. The Last Judgement plaque by John Weston, a gifted Exeter sculptor working c.1715–35, hangs nearby, a similar example being in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum. The final memorial, above the entrance porch, is to Jonathan and Elizabeth Ivie, who died in 1698 and 1717. It is possible that the Last Judgement plaque was originally associated with this monument, the skulls at its base being more akin in style to the Ivie memorial than to the plaque itself.
